A Futile Second Chance
by Clairavance
Summary: Might controls everything, and without strength, you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself." Dante wanted to know what Vergil was planning to do with all that power. The answer is obvious. He wanted to protect his loved ones - and he did just that.
1. Happy Birthday

_**Dedicated to Pillowmagic,  
just because you inspired me.**_

_Brief summary:_ Dante gets stuck raising a kid he denies having any relation to, despite everyone else very boldly pointing out that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. When Nero barges into Devil May Cry and accuses Dante's teenage son of stealing Yamato, it reinforces Dante's suspicion that he was right all along. But then, maybe things aren't exactly as they seem…

This story is pretty damn layered, it's not just another 'Dante's a dad' fic because the plot twist hasn't been done before. For the record, I own Ali (she's my OC) And no, I don't own Enji. He's totally and completely Capcom copyright... I just changed his name to fit in with the story. I've left hints about where this fic is going all over the place, and most of what goes on before the real action starts is going to be a bit ironic. You'll see what I mean.

Read, review, and I won't disappoint – devil's honour! ;)

*Edited: I can't believe this fic has gotten so many readers when the grammar in the summary sucked piles. Changed. Yay! :) *

**~……….~**

The weather was miserable and damp outside the warmth of the brightly lit diner. Icy blue eyes shifted from the grey downpour on the concrete outside, to the nearly finished vanilla sundae coated with sliced up strawberries in front of him. He dug a spoon into the creamy mound and rested his elbow on the table, studying the heap of ice cream for a moment.

"Happy birthday, Vergil." Dante muttered, and shoved the spoon into his mouth. He slouched back in the leather booth with a long sigh of contentment. Strawberry sundae bliss.

"Another one, Dante?" A curvaceous girl in a striped pink uniform rollerbladed over to him, chomping on gum and flashing him a warm smile.

"Nah…okay, you persuaded me. One more, and don't be shy with the strawberries, Cindy." Dante said.

"Coming right up." Cindy giggled and rolled away.

Dante watched her go with a grin before turning to look out the window beside him once more. Funny. It always seemed to be crap weather on this day. Although it was by all means a gloomy day – commemorating the remembrance of his misguided and deceased brother – Dante felt rather chipper.

His needs were fulfilled in every possible way. Trish provided the emotional nurturing he needed; the occasional warm-blooded women took care of his sexual desires; and hunting completed his daily dose of spiritual healing and physical exercise. He was in a good place. His life was balanced. And today was a damn good excuse to take the day off – something Dante didn't do all that often.

He devoured his second sundae that morning, and hailed a cab back to the Devil May Cry shop. He kicked the door shut behind him and sauntered over to the cheap red leather couch before dropping into it. In between jobs he liked to take a breather. Bring himself down from the high of another job well done, clear his head, give his body the chance to recuperate whatever damage it had encountered. And just chill out before business beckoned once more.

He needed today, after the hellish week he'd had. He was always chasing after one or the other evil, always on the move, always working. He loved his work – it encompassed his being. It was his purpose, and it was his life – it was his everything. Not to bloat his own turkey, but he was the best in his line of work. Many who were in the business knew this, which is why there was always another job cued up and waiting for him when he would return from a mission.

It was also why all the high ranking demons tried to kill him at every given opportunity. He'd been dodging a lot of them this past week, more than the norm he was accustomed to.  
Hence the fact that today, shop was closed and Dante could relish in the lethargy that solitude brought. He did a lot more work than people gave him credit for. It wasn't his fault that customers happened to catch him every time he was down and out on the couch. So it came as no surprise that he was just dozing off when a loud, perfunctory knock came on his door.

"Shop's closed." Dante called out. He popped open one lazy eye when there was another knock. "Can't you read the sign, shithead?" He said louder.

There was a quiet shuffling outside the door, and then nothing but the steady whir of the ceiling fans spinning. He closed his eye with a tired sigh, shifted on the couch to get more comfy, and waited. He could still sense somebody outside. Why they didn't just turn and leave, or come barging in, didn't worry him that much – in his line of duty job requests were never done over a cup of coffee.

Dante was on his feet and striding toward the door the same instant the knocking started up again, this time more insistent and irritating. He flung the door open, ready to either blow someone's head off or wrench them inside for interrogation, and was faced with an empty street. He stepped outside, red trench coat gently swaying in the cool breeze, and warily scanned up and down the road with cool eyes. There was nowhere to hide, and no human could have run fast enough for him to miss. He turned and walked backwards, squinting up at the roof of his building. There was nothing anywhere near his shop.

Weird.

He gave the street another slow, assessing glance to catch any flurry of movement. There was none. "Well that's annoying," Dante muttered, putting his head down to march inside when his eye happened to catch on a small package laid out on the bottom step. It was a rolled up patchwork blanket of dirty wool and green fleece, about the length of his forearm, and something inside of it was stirring.

Dante sent another weary glance around. Damn, he really wanted to chill out today. He gave the package a critical stare. He somehow knew he _really_ didn't want to see what was inside.  
"Sweet, a present for me?" He called out to the entity that was hiding from him. "I'm touched you remembered it's my birthday. Now how about you come show your face so I can give you a proper thanks?"

He looked around, waiting, and let out a dissatisfied grunt. "Fine, you want to play that game…"  
He crouched down and snatched the corner of the blanket up. It unleashed the awful stench of excrement, and Dante flung it aside with a shudder of disgust. Something coated in a mixture of blood and black-green tarry gunk rolled out onto the wet concrete sidewalk.

Dante had Ivory out of her holster and aimed at the thing before it even came to a complete stop. He didn't recognize what it was straight away. Not until a very heartfelt cry emanated from the open mouth, the little nude body trembling with every scream. He stared at it for another moment before putting away his weapon.

"This isn't any orphanage, lady!" He yelled as a fresh wave of annoyance crashed over him. He waited another drawn out moment, hoping the infant's screams would work its charm on the maternal instincts of the woman he knew had to be watching him from somewhere.

The cries heightened in pitch and volume, turning into sharp forks of unbearable sound poking into his eardrums. Dante stooped and carefully picked up the slippery little thing, holding it at arm's length as he marched back into the shop, grumbling unhappily. He found a semi-clean hand towel and wrapped it around the baby. It went beyond his logic how such a tiny being could produce such ear splitting volume. The baby couldn't be more than a few hours old – the cord was still attached.

Dante held the bundle against his chest while he punched a number into the antique phone, cradling the receiver between his shoulder and ear. He got the number wrong the first time – he was very rarely the one doing the calling – and only got it right the second time round.

The ringing cut off quickly. "Morrison," a voice came back in his ear.

"I need a ride." Dante said, grimacing down at the baby in the crook of his arm. Its screams were nearly overlapping one another in agonized distress. Dante added, "Right now."


	2. Problem Solved

Morrison couldn't have pitched up any sooner. Dante had the passenger door open and was sliding into the seat before the car had come to a complete stop. He slammed it shut, and sent an impatient glare at the older man. Morrison was clothed in an immaculate brown suit, the picture of upper business class.

"Get me to the orphanage," Dante snapped over the sound of loud wailing.

"What did you get yourself into this time?" Morrison said, sending an alarmed glance at the bundle in Dante's arms. He pulled away from the curb with a shriek of wheels.

"Someone left it on my doorstep." Dante said defiantly. "I didn't get into anything."

"They must have gotten mixed up. The orphanage is on the other side of town." Morrison said.

"Are you kidding? They had to be blind to miss my sign. _Devil May Cry_ doesn't remotely sound like an orphanage, or charity," Dante grumbled.

"Maybe it's another invitation for a job? It's not a demon, is it?"

"Don't think so. There wasn't a note. Someone's just taking a piss at me."

"There must be a reason why they chose to leave it at your shop."

"Yeah, well, I'm not interested. I just want to get this off my hands." Dante said, eyeing the small slime ball wearily. "Got a damn good pair of lungs on you, don't you, kid?"

The drive to the orphanage felt like an eternity. When the nondescript red brick building came into view, Dante's head was about ready to pop off his shoulders. He threw the door open and jogged up the steps. A neat 'welcome' mat was laid outside the door, and Dante resisted the urge to leave the baby right there. He pushed the door open and stepped into a clean and inviting room with brightly painted walls and a plush seating area. He strolled over to the counter with _reception_ engraved across white plywood.

An old woman with a tidy grey bun peeked up at him with sharp eyes from behind a pair of spectacles. She dropped the pile of paperwork on the desk when Dante nearly shoved the baby at her.

"What on earth-"

"Just take it!" Dante said.

The old woman obeyed, her wrinkled face crunching up even more when she frowned down at the small crying bundle. "My word!"

Dante turned around and headed for the door, glad to have someone else deal with this problem.

"Nina! Nina, stop him!" The old woman's voice piped up.

Dante stuck in his tracks when a familiar young woman appeared out of nowhere and blocked his exit. He sent a withering glance at the old woman, and then curiously studied the lady in front of him.

"Well. Didn't expect to see you here." Dante said.

"Likewise. What are you doing here?" Nina asked, blue doe eyes blinking back at him in bewilderment. "Not a job, I hope?"

"I understand you have most likely never done this before," the old woman snapped and spun Dante around with a surprisingly firm hand. "But this is not the way we do these things. There is paperwork to be filled out, signatures to be given over, files from the hospital to be transferred here. You don't just walk in, drop off your child, and think you can disappear without a word!"

"That's not my kid, lady," Dante narrowed his eyes down at the woman, and wrenched his arm free of her grip. "Somebody left it by my front door. You people deal with these things all the time, so deal with it."

"Well!" the old woman huffed, and marched off, murmuring to the still screaming baby, "don't you worry, little one, we'll get you all cleaned up and fed..."

"Someone just left it for you?" Nina asked, and Dante turned his attention back to her with a shrug. "That's odd."

"You don't say." Dante said, and casually leaned his shoulder against the wall. "You work here?"

"I'm a volunteer in my free time. I figured I had to surround myself with kids, because I love children, while Patty's at school, since I haven't been able to do anything normal for a while." Nina said, studying him evenly.

"How is the little brat?" Dante asked in mock idleness. Truth was, he really did give a damn about the squirt.

"She's doing well. You know, if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be able to have the life we have now."

"Tch, yeah, well..." Dante said awkwardly. He wasn't very good at thank yous – that was normally settled in a wad of green bills and a happy client. "She's happy, which isn't something I could say when she was staying with me. I'm not easy to live with."

"So I've heard." Nina said with an amused grin.

"Nina! A little help please!"

Both heads turned toward the door the old woman had disappeared through. "Coming, Maizy!" Nina called back, and exchanged looks with Dante.

"I gotta get going anyway." Dante said. "Stuff to do, you know."

"We need to catch up soon. Patty would love to see you again." Nina nodded him a farewell, and glided from the room.

Dante watched her go, the hem of her ankle length creamy dress swaying gracefully with her every step. He lingered for a second longer before stepping back out into the overcast afternoon. He got into the car beside Morrison, slammed the door, and leaned his head back against the seat for a moment.

"You okay?" Morrison asked, starting the engine.

"Just savouring the silence." Dante said, and closed his eyes.


	3. Rumours

~...~

Routine was back in place the next day. Dante woke up five minutes before shop opened for the day – to do his habitual disassembling of Ivory and Ebony for a good clean while in bed - and was still sleepily dragging himself down the iron stairwell when the phone sang out to him. He hoisted himself over the railing with ease and went to perch on the edge of the wide desk, snatching the receiver up smoothly.

"Devil may cry." He said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes tiredly. He expected it to be Morrison – he was the only guy gutsy enough to call this early on in the day – but the voice that slipped into his ear was unfamiliar, female, and the password was the first word she uttered. His eyes lit up as she tactfully told him where to meet her for a more personal briefing on the case. "On my way."

Dante shrugged on his coat and straightened it out, positioned Rebellion on his back, holstered his guns and flung the front door open to greet a new day. It was a beautiful morning, an autumn fire that turned everything into blood and gold. He got as far as setting his foot over the threshold when his eye landed on the blue and white baby seat pristinely placed directly in his path.

"Another one?" Dante said. He scanned the area briefly, and let out an angry growl. "This is getting old real quick!" He called out. He waited for a response of some sort, got none, and scooped the seat up by the handle. "Somebody really wants my boot up their ass." Dante mumbled, moving swiftly to his motorbike. He fixed the seat in front of him, revved the engine, and took off in a streak of red.

He glimpsed down once during his mad dash across town, and did a double take when two midnight blue eyes stared back at him from between the soft folds of the blankets. The gaze carried an accusing look – but that was stupid. He was letting himself feel guilty, and for no damn good reason. He was doing the kid a favour in his opinion.

The orphanage loomed up ahead, and Dante pulled to a halt with a burn of rubber and a squeal of tyres. He carried the baby seat to the front door and put it down. "Sorry, kid. I've got work to do." Dante said, and felt a tinge of regret. It was kinda cute, now that it wasn't screaming at him. He straightened up, jabbed at the doorbell, and mounted his bike. He was pulling onto the road when the door swung open.

He knew the location the woman had directed him to – it was several miles out of bounds from the city. Dante didn't go there very often. Part of him recognized the possibility of a trap, but if whatever evil was behind this clever scheme thought he was going to be caught off guard, they had another thing coming. He pulled up outside the grim graveyard and sat for a moment, eyes roaming over the ocean of white tombstones. The silence veiling the abandoned area was thick and deafening.

Dante slowly climbed off the bike and trailed over to the entrance of the graveyard. He leaned his hands on the stone wall and peeked through the black iron bars at the hushed graves. He hadn't set foot on these grounds since he was a kid. It was a tranquil place, a silent, isolated place for reflecting on the past, and for reliving faded memories.

He wandered through the gates, expecting to be sucked into one or the other malicious re-enactment of his past. He waited to hear the haunting echoes of screams and cries, but the only ones he heard were of his own memories surfacing in his mind. Dante blocked it with a mental hand, and extended his senses instead. His walk was casual and carefree, but he was aware of his surroundings, prepared to fend off an ambush at a moment's notice.

There was no one else in the graveyard with him. By the looks of it, it hadn't seen any company for a long time. Dante waited for someone to show up – to either give him information, or attack him. It was unusual that they hadn't by now. Something was definitely going on. He ambled past the tombstones, each a white marble duplicate of the one before, until he was well and lost between them. It had grown a bit – last time he was here, the newest two graves carried the names of his people. There were no colourful bouquets anywhere to be seen, the ground was layered with rotting old leaves, and the grass was overgrown and dead. Life hadn't come to visit the dead in decades.

It was by chance that Dante happened to catch the _Ve_ embossed on one tombstone to his left. He crouched down and pushed the weeds and grass aside to reveal the name. _Vernon_. He didn't know whether to be relieved or angry that it wasn't the one he was looking for. Was he looking for it? Dante rose to his feet with an unpleasant scowl on his face. What was he doing? He had work to do, damn it. This was no time to dwell on things better left buried.

He walked aimlessly through the graveyard for another moment, and was about to call it quits when his eye landed on a sunken grave. Finally. _Something_. He drew Rebellion and pointed it at the hole.

"Don't be shy, there's a welcome party waiting for you." Dante coaxed, and frowned. The ground was dry around the edges, crumbling into the hole. There were no signs that it had been made recently. It was an old grave. Dante knelt down and pushed the grass away from it to get a better view, holding Rebellion at the ready. There. Fingers had dug deep into the ground where the corpse had lifted itself out of its tomb. The impressions in the ground were clear – and small. Small hands. A child then – this was going to be a piece of cake. It had to be hiding here somewhere, watching him. Dante straightened up and glanced around.

"Come on, kiddo. I know you're here somewhere. Don't be scared, I just want to play. Come on out, eh," Dante called out, and used the side of his boot to push down the weeds growing up against the tombstone, eyes looking for a name. His words died on his lips when the name screamed back up at him. "Vergil."

Dante staggered away from the grave as though the name itself had dealt him a deadly blow. He stared at it for a long time before moving to the grave beside it. The three letters embossed across it chased away any denial that it was just another Vergil. Dante sank down on his mother's grave, and stared at the old hole in his brothers'.

"Fuck. No wonder you were all messed up." Dante breathed out. It made him regret not coming back to visit the site very often. If he'd come back, a week, a day, or every day after they were laid to rest – he could have been there. He could have been right there when his brother had to claw his way out of a grave. Hell, how that could have changed the course of history. If only he had the ability to turn back time...

"There you are!" A snide female voice chided.

Dante glanced up and climbed to his feet when Lady came charging at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been turning the city upside down looking for you, you dumbass." Lady said, her face flushed and her chest heaving. Her multi-coloured gaze darted from the gravesite to Dante, and she softened her tone slightly. "You don't know, do you?"

"What are you talking about?" Dante asked impatiently.

"That every demon in the vicinity is out to kill you right this moment." Lady said tiredly. "I thought you might need some backup. But, uh... what are you doing _here_?"

"I got set up." Dante said flatly, dusting off his coat and sheathing Rebellion. "Besides, I can take care of myself. Your concern is touching, though."

"Don't be stupid, Dante," Lady narrowed her gaze at him, her voice sharpening. "They've found a way to kill you for good. Or so the rumours go."

"I'd like to see them try." Dante said, and gestured around the silent graveyard. "As it is, no one seems to have the guts to give it a shot."

Lady shifted her weight and folded her arms across her chest. "You're so conceited. This is _big_, Dante. They're all rallying together to take you down."

"Yeah? Where?" Dante huffed. "I've been itching for a fight all day."

"They're taking the city apart looking for you." Lady said. "Your store is in a bit of a mess. Now, are you coming?"

"There's no pay for this, is there?" Dante asked unhappily, brushing past her toward the exit of the graveyard.

"You'd better hope there is. You still owe me a shitload of money." Lady said, falling in stride beside him.

They sped back to the city, and were greeted with people scattering in every direction, screaming their lungs out. Demons blundered through the streets, diving through windows and ripping out doors. Dante headed for the biggest of the lot – a sludge ball with green scales and too many tentacles to his liking.

"Hey, ugly! Heard you're looking for me." Dante called out to it, drawing out Ebony and Ivory as the demon whirled to face him.

"You!" It gurgled in a distorted, thunderous voice.

"Come on, then! You want me dead, here I am. Now let's get to the killing already!"

The demon backed away from him, burbling with manic laughter. "I am not going to fight _you_, son of Sparda! We have other means of bringing about your demise."

"Yeah, what's that? You're not going to sit on me, are you?" Dante asked, eyeing the large mass of demon warily.

"He does not have it!" a slimy purple demon with skinny limbs climbed up onto its master's shoulder.

"Find it! It is unprotected! _Find it_!" The larger demon roared, and demons scattered in obedience.

Dante stared up at the demon for a puzzled second before a glowing fireball shot past him. The demon had no time to react before the blow hit, sending demon gore raining down.

"Hey!" Dante spun on Lady, who was preoccupied with shooting at another cluster of demons.

"Get your lazy ass to work!" Lady shouted back over her shoulder.

"This is why I prefer to work alone." Dante muttered, and fired a dual of bullets on the scampering lesser demons. They fought well into the afternoon until Dante got rid of the last pest with a swing of Rebellion.

"Don't think I'll be getting any jobs again anytime soon. We just took out a whole damn city of these things." Dante said, twisting his blade through the demon's gut before it imploded into a gust of dirt.

"You'd better come up with something then. I want a quarter of my money by the end of next week." Lady said, and with that she turned away from him. Dante watched her climb on her bike and take off without another word.

"Women." Dante mumbled, and made his own way back to the shop. Lady had been right. The building was a mess. Not to the point where it could no longer be saved, thankfully, but his pool table was crushed like a concertina, his vintage jukebox was flat on its face, and his desk had been tipped over. His eyes darted to the sword mounted on the wall, untouched. If it had been demons raiding his place, Sparda's sword would be gone and there'd be nothing left standing.

Demons had no concept of valuing property. Yet his shop was still in one piece, and nothing had been taken. They must have been looking for something he didn't have. Dante went to straighten his desk, and picked up the framed photograph. The glass was cracked, but the photo inside unharmed. He'd have to get it a new frame. Shit – with what money?

"Damn it." Dante spat, and straightened up when the front door clicked shut. He hadn't heard it open, and he rose to his feet, ready to slaughter whatever demon he'd missed. There was no one in the shop, and the only thing out of place was the blue and white baby seat right inside the door.

Dante streaked across the room and hurled himself outside, eyes wildly scanning for the perpetrator. "I've got a lot on my damn plate as it is! Come get your kid before I shoot it!" Dante shouted, oblivious to people on the sidewalks staring at him like he'd just escaped the loony bin. Dante chuckled in a release of anger. "Fine. I'll just do what I did before until you get the picture!"

Dante headed back into Devil May Cry, and once again dialled his partner.

"Morris..."

"It's back again." Dante cut him off brusquely.

"I'm on my way." Morrison said and hung up.

The drive to the orphanage took far too long this time. They had to take alternate routes to get through the destruction the attack had caused earlier, and every traffic light seemed to hold them up.

"Want me to drop it off?" Morrison asked when he parked outside the orphanage.

"No. I need some answers." Dante said.

"Be polite," Morrison called after him when Dante grabbed the baby seat and for the second time that day jogged up the steps.

He barged into the room without knocking, and put the baby seat down on top of the counter. Old Maizy glanced up at him, and sighed when her gaze landed on the baby seat.

"This kid isn't crawling his way over to my shop every time." Dante said to her reserved expression.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Who picked up the baby? Because whoever the idiot is that keeps abducting it, keeps abandoning him on my doorstep, and it's starting to grind me." Dante said, thrusting his thumb at the sleeping infant.

"I don't understand. Wait one moment, deary," Maizy shook her head, and turned to call in a feeble voice. "Nina? Nina!"

Nina poked her head through a backdoor, and walked over with a startled and somewhat grim expression when she spotted Dante. "Who fetched this baby, dear?" Maizy asked.

"Well, you did," Nina said, giving Dante a puzzled glance. "Early this morning."

"I damn well didn't." Dante contested.

"Yes, you did." Nina scowled. "You left him outside on the doorstep, and I brought him inside, and you came barging back in here like you did just now to take him back. Don't tell me you've changed your mind _again_?"

"Look, lady, I left the kid out there, and took off. I did _not_ come back in here. I don't _want_ it."

"You were a lot more charming this morning." Nina said with a slight pout. "You made it quite clear that you intended to keep him, Dante."

"You sure it was me?" Dante said. "Because I wasn't in the city this morning."

"Of course. How many people are out there who look exactly like you?" Nina asked, momentarily amused. "Look, fine. If you want to leave him here and take the night to think about what it is you really want, you're more than welcome to. Just know that one way or the other, it's permanent. You can't keep changing your mind like this."

"Hah, funny, I don't intend to," Dante growled. "Keep the kid here. Got it?"

He didn't wait for a response. Dante slammed the door shut behind him, and gave Morrison a wave of disregard. "I need to walk off some steam. Catch you tomorrow." Dante said, giving him a quick salute through the open window before turning in the direction of Devil May Cry.

The walk didn't help him cool down. If anything, it just made him feel worse, especially when the dark clouds above decided to wring out their tears and soak him to the bone. Cold and drenched, he shook off his coat upon stepping back into the shop, and spread it out on a coat hanger to dry.

He walked right past the messy contents of his home, stripping off his clothes as he went. He was nude by the time he reached the bathroom, and he got into the shower to wash away the chill on his skin. The water beating down his back was delicious, rinsing off any traces of dried blood and demon gunk. He'd call and order a pizza, crack open some tomato juice, put his feet up and recover from the rigors of battle with a good dose of sleep. That ought to be a good end to a not-so-bad day.

He found a clean pair of jeans to wear, and ran his hands roughly through his hair to shake out most of the water when he opened the bathroom door. Something tripped him and sent him crashing hard onto the floor. Dante flipped onto his back, surprised, and stared.

There were no words. Dante let out a furious roar, pumping his fist into the floor angrily before picking up the phone and dialling three digits. He waited impatiently, foot tapping on the floor, and his eyes were icy and hard as he glared at the baby seat sitting mockingly outside his bathroom door.

"911, what's your emergency?"

"Get me a squad car to the Devil May Cry, right now. Someone keeps dumping trouble in my lap, and I have had enough."

"Could you state exactly what the problem is..."

"The problem is, if you don't get the police here in the next ten minutes, I'm going to shoot myself." Dante snapped and slammed the phone down, glowering at the baby. It blinked back at him innocently. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm sorry your parents don't want you, but I'm not the solution here."


	4. Demands

Unfortunately for Dante, he hadn't thought clearly in his fit of rage while making the phone call. It was no wonder that three police cars came to a screech outside Devil May Cry, and a small fleet of armed police officers broke down his front door. Dante straightened up from his desk, reached for his guns in confusion – and felt something sharp hit him in the arm. He looked down at the small dart protruding from his bicep, and ripped it out with an aggravated snort.

All feeling left his arm, and it hung like a piece of dead meat on him. "Ow, shit, that stings! I didn't mean I was literally going to shoot myself, you idiots." Dante scowled, flopping back in his chair. "It was a figure of speech!"

"Strange figure of speech if I ever heard one," one of the officers said, edging closer cautiously. "You unarmed?"

"Yeah," Dante said, lifting his lifeless arm and dropping it on the desk with a loud thud. "Pretty much."

A couple of the police officers lowered their weapons at his response, and the tension in the room dissipated slowly. "What did you call us out for?"

"That." Dante nodded at the baby seat beside him on the floor. "Someone has been dropping the baby off here since yesterday, and no, it's not mine."

"That's kind of strange. Did you take it to the orphanage?"

"Did I take it to the orphanage," Dante repeated with a cold chuckle. "_Of course_ I took it to the damn orphanage. Somehow it just ends up back here at my place."

"Sure you're not the father? Kind of looks like you." One of the officers commented, crouching down to take a better look at the baby. "Maybe the mom decided to ditch you with the dirty work."

"Like I said, it's not mine." Dante said dangerously. The officer grabbed the baby seat before backing away quickly.

"We'll handle this. It won't happen again, I assure you." The officer – the one Dante thought had shot him with the mild tranquilizer – added before closing the door behind his fleet.

"Guess there's a first time for everything," Dante muttered, lifting and dropping his hand again curiously. Tranquilizers. Didn't have that one before – and they got him in his good sword arm too. He clenched and unclenched his fingers as feeling returned, and relaxed back in the goth-style chair.  
What a day. If it got any more exciting, he was going to crack a coronary.

It seemed all the excitement had fizzled out, though. He got his double pizzas on time – the delivery guy didn't even mention his growing tab – the tomato juice went down nicely, and he enjoyed a relatively quiet evening until he rammed a fist into his old jukebox to get it working again. He was crawling into bed when the sound of the front door being flung open made him drop his head into a pillow. "Gah dammit..." He mumbled into the downy softness.

Slow, heavy footsteps creaked across the wooden floor. Shuffling. A soft thud. Dante didn't budge until he heard a firm step on the iron stairs. He rolled off the bed, grasping his twin guns in the process, and moved toward the door in a crouch. "I'm going to get you, you bastard..." Dante whispered, and kicked his door open.

There was no one on the stairs. No one in the shop, for that matter, except once again, the baby seat left on one of his cheap leather couches. Dante held himself ready and guarded, and didn't put away his guns until he'd searched every corner of the store. He seized hold of the baby seat once more, and took his bike to the orphanage.

It was nearly midnight when he arrived, shoving the door open unceremoniously and plunking the baby seat down on the counter again. Maizy looked as annoyed to see him as he felt to be there.

"What the hell is going on here? I told you to keep it, or didn't you get the message when the police showed up?" Dante demanded.

"What police?" Maizy asked disdainfully. "There was no police here. And you, sir, made it quite clear that you were going to keep that child when you fetched him earlier tonight."

"Oh, _I_ did?" Dante said.

"In a don't-disagree-with-me-or-there-will-be-the-hell-to-pay way, yes. Now I told you before, we're not taking that child in again. You can't bounce around like this, your indecisiveness will cause that baby a lot of harm." Maizy chided sternly. "Just accept your responsibility."

"Hey, I'm not in the habit of going around and knocking up ladies, granny. Take it, or I'll leave it outside."

"Go ahead. It will most likely just end up back in your care, any way."

"Okay. You know what? Next time I come back in here to take this baby, you tell me to go screw myself." Dante snarled in her face. "And you tell him...me, that if I have to find that child back in my shop, I'm going to lose my cool, and do something he'll... I'll regret. Got it?"

Maizy stared back at him blankly. Dante spun around and rushed out onto the street. His bike was taking a beating today as he opened up and sped recklessly through the dark, quiet streets. He pulled up at the bar, and ordered a couple of cold beers before he could stomach going back to the shop. He was afraid the baby would be back there when he returned.

The weather was unusually murky when he left the bar a few hours later. The stars and moon were hidden behind low, black and brooding clouds. Lightning blitzed through the air, and thick rain hung in the atmosphere. He took a slow drive back to the shop, and sat for a long time outside on his bike, just staring at the silent blind windows.

Dante did a thorough scan of the surrounding area before he finally – _finally_ – entered the shop. He flicked on the lights, eyes coolly assessing the still quite jumbled appearance of his place. He breathed out a sigh of relief when nothing blue or white was anywhere to be seen.

"Maybe they got the message." Dante said, and closed the door behind him. He ought to invest in an alarm of some sort – give pricks who kept coming in here uninvited a good scare. But then, where would he find the cash for something fancy like that? Besides, he could scare them off just with himself...

His thoughts crashed to a halt when half-way across the room, lightning struck nearby, shaking the walls, and all power went out.  
"Oh, great!"  
Dante whirled around into a crouching position, one leg extended to use his weight for collateral movement in any direction to avoid an attack, Ebony and Ivory drawn and aimed – all in one swift, stealthy move the same instant the front door snapped open angrily. Lightning illuminated the baby seat smack in the middle of the doorframe, sitting there like an eerie silhouette. Dante's eyes narrowed as he waited for the assault. He could feel someone else there – or some _thing_. He could almost touch its fury; breathe in its power. No smell, though, and there was no sound. He'd have to rely on his other senses to locate the demonic presence.

His breath stilled in his chest, every inch of his body became rigid, and he waited, eyes focussed on the doorway. For a moment there was nothing. Dante opened his mouth, to challenge and provoke the creature out of hiding, when hands suddenly grabbed hold of his from out of nowhere and twisted his wrists painfully. The guns clattered to the floor, and Dante yanked free of the grip, at the same time swinging his leg in a wide arch. Flesh connected with flesh as he swiped his opponent right off their feet. They crashed to the floor with a quiet 'oomph'. Dante unsheathed Rebellion in a fraction of a second, fully intent on turning his attacker into a pile of red ribbon, but it moved even faster than him. It was on its feet and stumbling away from him. By the little Dante could tell in the dark, it looked about his own size.

Dante didn't miss a beat. He advanced on his attacker with purpose in his stride, and pulled Rebellion back, ready to deliver a blow that would either knock the guy out, or preferably decapitate him, when lightning slashed through the night and cast bright, flickering white light over the scene. Dante stuck in his tracks when his eye caught a glimpse of his opponent before darkness haloed them once more. His height, same build, similar regal features etched with an annoyed scowl, and silvery blonde hair slicked back from his forehead. Familiar, but not. Too young to be Vergil, had Vergil lived.

Dante frowned hard. "Nero?"  
Something flew out at him in the dark. Dante lifted his arm to block it with his sword reflexively, noted within the same second that it was nothing but a damn pizza box, and too late realized he'd given his assailant a grand opening to take him down. A blow struck him right in the ribcage – he as much as heard as felt several bones cracking on impact – and he was too slow to react when the guy brought him down on his knees. His arms were wrenched behind his back in an awkward and painful position. "Hey, that's not fair play!"

Dante tried to gather his legs beneath him fast enough to either flip over onto his back, or throw his attacker off. The guy wasn't stupid, though. The sound of joints popping out of place echoed through the room like gunshots, and Dante bit down a scream.

"Ohm...fffffn sun ofa..." A foot came down hard between his shoulder blades, knocking the breath out of him and sufficiently pinning him to the floor. If this was Nero, he'd be damned.

His opponent crouched down on top of him and pressed Dante's head hard into the floor.

"Now you listen to me, and you listen good, Dante," the voice was young, male, and the speech a drawl that betrayed a regal upbringing. Dante didn't know that voice. "Insults I can deal with. But _never_ threaten my family again."

"Dude... get off me..." Dante choked out.

"That baby is your responsibility now. I have exhausted every other plan to keep him protected, and this is the only way I can assure his safety. Now, I hate it as much as you do, but you will be an adult about it and take it heads on. Get it?"

"I'm not doing anything unless you pay me, dickhead!" Dante grimaced when the grip on his head tightened painfully. "Ow!"

"Don't be an ignorant buffoon. In case you haven't noticed, every demon is out to get that baby. It's your duty to keep him safe. If you let anything happen to him, I will kill you myself."

"_Don't hurt him_," a female voice rang through the room, and Dante's head whipped toward its surreal familiarity. It was a dream. A nasty, morbid, ugly dream – it had to be. But the pain blazing through his legs and arms at that moment felt far too real for him to deny, and that voice...

"What are you doing here? I told you not to come here!" The guy on Dante barked angrily.

"I just wanted to come say goodb..."

"_Stop talking_. For God's sake, woman, get out of here!" The guy actually sounded frantic when Dante struggled vigorously to escape his hold.

"Hey! Hey... wait!" Dante shouted when he heard light footsteps retreat and fade. "Who was that? Who was she? _Who!_"

"None of your business, twerp. Just keep in mind what I told you, all right? If I have to go pick up that baby from the orphanage or the authorities one more time, I'm going to come kick your ass til kingdom come." His breath was hot and tickled against Dante's ear, and his voice was dangerously quiet. "You do not want me as your enemy, Dante."

The castrated hold on Dante released abruptly, and he leapt to his feet, ignoring the shockwave of pain it sent up his legs. He was alone again, the guy had just gone poof in the dark. Teleporting, Dante thought, and stumbled over to the door. No one in sight. There was no point going out in the downpour to look for anybody, because he knew he would find no one. He went over to the couch and slouched down on it beside the baby seat. He eyed it for a moment, the sweet female voice burned into his eardrums and replaying itself over and over like a broken record.

Dante leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and dropped his face in his hands. He wasn't hallucinating. It had been real. And unless it was another cheap trick – another menacing way for demons to get at him and create another Trish – the woman in the dark had definitely, without a doubt, been Eva.

~....~

**Hiccup: If you're reading, please leave me a review! And for you guys who already have left me reviews, thanks so much, and I hope you keep on reading :)**


	5. Unloaded

Dante didn't stir from the couch until a niggly, infantile wail came from the small being safely tucked between white fleece blankets. He reached over and carefully tugged away the folds to wrinkle his nose at the scrunched up face squinting back at him. It wasn't a full out cry right away – the baby was making sounds like he was revving up for the real deal.

"What's your problem?" Dante muttered, and leaned back into the couch with a tired sigh. "You look ugly when you cry. Stop it."

He tried to rock the baby seat to either shut it up or distract it enough to make it forget whatever it was about to cry about. His mind was stuck in one place, though. The memories of his mother had all simply disappeared. He couldn't recall any, no matter how hard he tried, because they were all replaced by the single event from the night before. His mind was starting to have conflicting thoughts about it, debating that it might have possibly been someone who just really sounded a lot like Eva. But his heart was stubborn and convinced – it _had_ been her. It could be no one else, as impossible as the whole concept deemed.

"So... if my gut instinct is right," Dante said, peering at the baby uneasily. "You might be family. Another descendant of Sparda. We're just popping up all over the place, aren't we? I'm guessing that was your dad trying to kick my ass last night. Any chance that he might be Nero's twin?"

The baby responded with a drawn out wail, and Dante grimaced. "Yeah, that would be weird, wouldn't it? I think we need to go say hi to that kid, anyway. He might know something about this whole affair. Who knows? Maybe his lady will be broody enough to actually take you in." Dante said, cheering up at the mere thought. "Yeahhhh."

The drive to Fortuna was a long one, made longer only by the fact that Dante could see the infant screaming his little lungs out. He couldn't hear it above the roar of the motorbike, but it was still very distracting. The weather seemed a lot more optimistic in the town than it had back in Metropolis. The sky was a bright clear blue, the sun pleasantly warm, and when Dante pulled up outside the old cathedral, he found that the town had efficiently been put back together.

His concern about how he was going to locate Nero eradicated itself when he stepped into the busy street. People took one look at him, recognized him, and then brown hooded cloaks ran screaming in the opposite direction. Dante stood uncertainly in the middle of the street, did a quick assessing scan of the area around him to make sure there weren't any demons about to launch an attack on him, saw none, and stared at the running people in bewilderment. What the hell?

"It must be you." Dante said, holding the baby seat at arm's length. The baby's voice was going hoarse and feeble, but it was still crying full-throat. "C'mon now, stop it. You're scaring everyone away."

Dante trailed through the streets, and a deep scowl unfolded across his face when people scattered away from him. Asking for directions was out of the question. He could only hope that Nero would come investigate what the cause of the stampede was. Dante turned and went down a couple of steps into a narrower down-sloping road, sending more people fleeing like startled pigeons.

He knew he was intimidating, but Dante didn't recall ever having the talent to scare people off at this magnitude. Maybe they were just too isolated from the rest of the world? What not with all that crap the Order of the Sword and Sanctus had been feeding their gullible minds...

Oh. The recollection of the crazy old fart re-entered Dante's mind. The grey old eyes going wide, the mouth dropping open, the wrinkled face turning a shade paler when Dante pointed his gun dead centre on the old man's forehead, and pulled the trigger. Taking out their holy leader in a no-nonsense, unexpected, brutal method, inside a building that was meant to be sacred, during a service, with every citizen in town as eye-witness. Damn. He forgot – he was still the bad guy in their perspective. No wonder they bolted away from him.

One figure amid the flight of people stood solid ahead of him, straightening up slowly from a stack of crates filled with vegetables. It turned to him slowly, and then it was weaving through the crowd of panic stricken people, straight toward him. Dante reached a hand to his shoulder and his fingers rested against the cool hilt of Rebellion.

The figure came to an abrupt halt right in front of him. Delicate hands lifted and pulled down the brown hood to reveal an innocent and familiar face, swathed with an emotion Dante couldn't quite define. Dante dropped his hand to his side. Golden doe eyes were fixed on the baby seat he was holding.

"Ah. Just the person I was looking for." Dante said with a grin.

The young woman blinked, startled, and finally tore her gaze from the crying baby to look up at him. "Really?"

"Well... no, I need to see Nero. Is he still around?" Dante asked, grin gone.

"Of course he is. Where else would he be?" The girl scowled up at him, and actually snatched the baby seat from him. "Come with me."

Dante followed her, trying to place a name to her face. He and Nero hadn't actually made chit-chat other than the banter they shared during their battles when Dante had last been here, but he was pretty sure Nero had said her name. Or somebody else had. It might have been Trish, giving him a briefing on the case when she infiltrated the Order.

She was the sister of Credo. Ah, now, Credo he could remember – dying a heroic but stupid death in an attempt to save an inexperienced Nero who, as it turned out, was fully capable of handling himself. But _her_ name... damn it. It wouldn't come to him. She moved with a lithe and graceful pace that Dante had no trouble keeping up with.

"I see the city's had a revamp." Dante said casually.

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Yes. It had to be done. It was a wreck when you left."

"You make it sound like it was my fault."

"I didn't say it was. The events were just unfortunate, and the city suffered the brunt of it."

"It looks good. Better, even."

"And you would remember what it looked like before?"

"Uh... sort of. So, what's Nero been up to?" Dante asked, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he was a knight for the Order, wasn't he? The Order's gone."

"Oh." She said quietly, and looked straight ahead, mouth grim. "He's been helping out around town. Protecting the people from demons - not that there's been that many for a while."

"Good, good..." Dante said, nodding.

"We have been having trouble with the people, though."

"Yeah?" Dante pressed when it was clear she wasn't going to continue.

"Hmm. Now that the Order is gone and word got out that Nero is possibly a descendant of Sparda, people have been... strange. Treating him differently."

"Have they been picking on him?" Dante asked, amused.

"No. They've been short of worshipping him." The girl sent him a sharp glance.

"Heh. That's not too bad."

"How can you even say that?"

"Hey, it beats having demons and humans alike wanting him dead twenty four seven. He got dealt the lucky cards, if you ask me." Dante said to her fuming gaze.

"Whose baby is this?" She glanced away from him and down at the sobbing baby.

"I was thinking Nero might know."

The girl halted in her tracks so suddenly that Dante collided into her. She staggered and whirled around to look at him, her face flushed a deep crimson and her eyes brimming with tears.

"What the-" Dante started, steadying himself when she shoved him away.

"And what makes you think that Nero would know anything about this?" She exploded in a trembling voice, gesturing toward the baby.

"Hey, relax before you hurt yourself, babe," Dante said, holding his hands up in mock surrender and waving her down. "It's nothing for you to worry about. Like I said, I need to see Nero about this."

The girl spun around again and marched off, golden brown hair streaming out behind her. "Insufferable, impossible mad..." she grumbled under her breath, and Dante couldn't make out the rest of the insults. He picked up his pace to catch up to her just as she turned and threw open a door. He followed her and was greeted with a familiar voice from somewhere inside the apartment.

"Kyrie, you're home already?"

Kyrie stopped dead in her tracks, and Dante managed to catch himself before he could crash into her again. It was a modest apartment, with few furnishings and ivory walls.

Nero appeared in a doorway leading off from the front foyer, ice blonde hair in total disarray and blue eyes dazed from sleep. He was dressed in a black short sleeve shirt and matching silk boxers, and his face crunched up in vague disorientation when he spotted Dante.

His gaze darted from Dante, to the wailing baby, and finally focussed on Kyrie. His bemused expression softened into concern and something very much like hurt, and he stepped forward.

"He wanted to see you." Kyrie said brusquely, and Dante frowned when he realized she was crying.

"Kyrie..." Nero started, but she simply shoved the baby seat into his chest, brushed past him and disappeared down a hallway. The sound of a door slamming shut echoed back to them, and Nero turned to give Dante a measuring look. "What the hell is going on?"

"Don't look at me. I didn't do that." Dante said, gaze drifting from the hallway to fix on Nero. "I got a problem. Thought you might be able to help me out a bit."

"You mean this?" Nero lifted the baby seat slightly, and leaned closer to take a better look. Curiosity coloured his face before he looked at Dante. "What's this all about?"

"I'm not exactly sure...uh... some guy showed up at my place last night and threatened me...eh... could we somehow shut it up?" Dante asked, eyes darting from Nero to the baby and back. "I can barely hear myself think over that noise."

"Yeah, I think I got just the thing." Nero said, grimacing at the cries. Dante trailed behind him down the hallway, and froze in confusion outside the room Nero stepped into. He watched the younger man stroll over to a white set of drawers and pick up a pacifier from the surface.

Nero sank down on a comfortable rocking chair and bent down to shove the dummy in the gaping little mouth. It was a moment before the cries ceased and silence fell. Dante glanced from the sunny yellow walls, decorated with a strip of bright colourful circus trains and animals, to the shelves mounted against one wall lined with about a hundred different baby products, to the stack of disposable nappies hovering like a tower in one corner, and finally stared at the red and yellow crib beneath the window. It took him a long moment before he could tear his gaze away from it to look at Nero.

Nero was looking back at him steadily. There was a jaded look in his cobalt eyes that Dante didn't recall being there when they first met. His lips pursed together wistfully and he glanced down at the child inside the baby seat.

"He's hungry. That won't keep him quiet for long." Nero said.

"Did I miss something?" Dante asked, genuinely confused, and gestured around him when he stepped into the room. "You guys planning on expanding a bit?"

"We were." Nero said, and stared down at the infant. "It didn't work out the way we planned on it, though. We lost the baby halfway through the second trimester. Happened a couple of months ago. Kyrie doesn't want me to get rid of this stuff, but she doesn't want to try again, either."

Dante leaned back against the wall, and squinted down at his feet uncomfortably. "Sorry, kid. That's gotta be tough."

"Yeahh." Nero said, and shrugged briefly. He finally looked back up, and frowned. "What's this all about, though?"

"Some maniac ditched it on my doorstep. Keeps bringing it back even when I drop it off at the orphanage. He tried to attack me last night – I'm not sure, he was probably trying to intimidate me so he could force me to take it in. He looked a lot like you. I thought you'd know something." Dante said, relieved to be discussing something less personal. He wasn't that great at relating to people.

"No," Nero said slowly. "He looked like me?"

"Could have been your brother."

Nero's eyebrows shot up in doubt. "Like there could be another freak out there like me." He snorted, and shook his head. "Sorry, man. I can't give you anything. I don't know either."

"Hmpf." Dante muttered unhappily. "Was worth a shot."

The baby let out another heart-breaking sob, and Nero let out a long breath. "You're not planning on ditching it on me, are you?"

"No." Dante lied, casting a pointed look around the room when Nero rose to his feet.

"Dude." Nero said, narrowing his eyes at Dante suspiciously. "Try it, and I'll burn your store down."

"Hey, that's not very nice." Dante said, surprised. "Besides, I wasn't planning on _ditching_ it on you. But seeing as you've got the goods, and I don't... it won't hurt if I left it here with you for a while, right? You never know, it might do your lady some good."

"I don't think so." Nero glared at him.

"Look, I can't track this guy down with a kid strapped to my ass. When I find him, all of this will be out of our hands, and we all live happily ever after." Dante glared back.

"How about you take the baby, get the hell out of my house, and no one gets hurt?"

"How about I kick some reason into your dumb head?"

Nero stared at him and took a step away, lips twitching in contempt. "Why bring me into this? Don't you have other sources to back you up?"

"Yeah, I do, but unfortunately none of them has my father's blood in their veins." Dante said begrudgingly. "There's just you and me, kid."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nero demanded.

"It's a family matter. There is no one competent enough to deal with this, and I can't do it on my own. You get to play daddy for a little while, and leave the dirty work for me to take care of, alright? It's not that big a deal."

"Not that big..." Nero started angrily.

"It's okay."

Both heads snapped in the direction of the soft voice, and Dante levelled his fighting stance into a casual, relaxed pose when Kyrie uncertainly treaded into the room. Her eyes were a little red, but that was the only sign that defied the fact that she'd been crying. Her voice was steady and strong, and her face gentle and warm.

"We'll keep him here." Kyrie said, stooping beside the baby seat and scooping the baby into her arms. "Just until you find his parents, right?" She said, looking at Dante.

"Exactly." Dante said with a smile.

Kyrie looked at Nero, who responded with a not so pleased expression. "Kyrie, it's not a good idea..."

"Nero, don't be silly. He'll be in much better hands here with us than with _him_," Kyrie chided lightly, nodding her head at Dante.

"Yeah." Dante said uncertainly. Was that an insult? He decided not to dwell on it, and make headway instead. He scooped the empty baby seat up. "I'll see you when I see you. Enjoy."

He grabbed Nero's demon arm on his way out of the room, and dragged the kid behind him toward the front door. The arm glowed a warning blue in response, and Dante dropped it when he turned to face him squarely.

"Keep them safe, Nero. For whatever reason the kid was unloaded on my shoulders, it can't be good. Nothing related to me is _ever_ good or easy."

"Like I'd let anything happen to Kyrie." Nero said scornfully.

"Catch you later then," Dante said with a flick of his hand, and marvelled in amusement as people once again ran from him on his way back to his bike. He got on, once again fixed the baby seat securely in front of him, and kicked the engine into gear with a mechanical purr.

Now, for the real fun to start.


	6. Maimed Memories

Venomous demon stone. Check.  
Loaded Coyote-A. Check.

Dante wiped the cocky smirk off his face when the orphanage came into view, but he was reeling with glee on the inside. Time to put his master plan into action. He pulled up outside the building with a screech of tyres, picked the baby seat off his bike, and marched up the steps. His senses were extended, searching, alert, even as he put up his facade of irate anger. He burst through the door, startling a young couple and Maizy where they were deep in conversation at the counter.

Maizy straightened up and pursed her lips grimly at the sight of him. "Now, see here..."

"Dante?"

He turned at the familiar voice, and a slow smile curled his lips when the blonde, pretty girl in school uniform edged closer to him almost shyly.

"Hey, what a surprise." Dante said. "I see you're going to Metropolis High now, huh?"

"Metropolis Middle School, actually. I'm a junior." Patty said, and nervously smoothed down her hair. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Well, the shop's in a mess so I thought I'd come find you..."

"Oh, _shut _it, Dante." Patty scowled, folding her arms across her chest. "You should get yourself a maid."

"That's why I came to you." Dante said, and gave her a playful wink. "No one can clean up as nice as you..."

"Shut up," Patty huffed. The next moment her moody demeanour shattered and she flung her arms around him in a bear hug, breaking out in a broad smile of genuine happiness. "As crazy as this sounds, I missed you."

"As crazy as it sounds, I missed you, too." Dante said, gently disengaging the child from him. "Is your mom around?"

"I'm sure she's here somewhere." Patty said with a shrug and stepped away to give him a critical once over. "So, what are you doing here, really?"

"Waiting to catch a new friend of mine." Dante said vaguely, and cocked his eyebrows when Patty fished through the blankets in the baby seat. "It's empty."

"Oh." Patty straightened up, puzzled, and blinked at him. "You're weird sometimes, you know that?"

"I've been called worse." Dante said. "I just thought I'd drop this off, seeing as I no longer need it."

"Oookay." Patty said, taking the baby seat from him. "I'd hate to ask."

"Yeah, you don't want to know." Dante said, and gave her another grin. "And, hey, don't even think of getting involved. This is a pretty hard case I'm working on."

"I think I've got better things to do in my spare time than getting dragged into whatever mission you're on. There's always blood and gore where you're concerned." Patty said and grimaced. "I'm squeamish."

Dante snorted. "I'll see you around town."

"Hey, Dante?" Patty's voice stopped him halfway across the room. He turned slightly to glance at her expectantly. "Do you want to come over for dinner this weekend?"

"I'll think about it." Dante said with a faint nod, managed a colourless smile, and slipped through the front door. Count on Patty to remind him how damn hungry he was at a time like this.

He got back on his bike and sat there for a moment, readjusting his coat and tightening his gloves, all the while keenly aware of everything – and everyone – within a ten mile radius of him. His fingers curled around the leather handle bars. His foot kicked the metal stand back in place. He revved the engine – and _there_ it was. That same presence he'd sensed the night before. He could feel the power throbbing off the guy in shockwaves. Somewhere to his left, but Dante didn't make a show of looking for him. Instead, he kicked his bike into gear and took off in the opposite direction, his gaze fixated on the rear view mirror. He turned a corner, and glimpsed a tall, silver haired figure emerge from the building next door to the orphanage just before his view was cut off by a long store window. He pulled the bike to a screaming halt outside a pet shop, left it idling on the spot, and his feet carried him swiftly back to the orphanage.

It didn't matter that the demon stone's poisonous properties weakened him. It would weaken his opponent, too – surprise him, bring him down, and before he'd have time to react, Dante would be hauling his tied up ass in. Dante neared the orphanage just as the door swung open. The guy was powerfully built, flaxen hair smoothed back from his forehead, clothed in black and red in similar fashion to Dante's own attire. He was evidently distressed, because he didn't hear Dante come up behind him. A demon with that amount of power ought to have felt Dante advance on him from miles away, but he didn't. An easy target. It played in Dante's favour.

Dante felt the stone in his pocket and brought it out, every fibre of his body strained in anticipation. It was going to be a big fight, and he was ready for it. The thought to just knock the guy out from behind came to him briefly, but Dante dismissed it. That wasn't his style. Instead, he pulled a fast manoeuvre and stepped right into the guy's path.

The young man didn't see Dante until he physically smacked into him. The guy stumbled away and steadied himself, hard blue eyes blinking in startled amazement. He was younger than Dante had initially thought – a kid hanging between adolescence and manhood. Nineteen or twenty, if he had to guess, around Nero's age maybe. What nearly threw Dante off his course of action was the fact that, unnervingly and inexplicably, he could see both Vergil and Nero reflected to some degree in the guy's features.

The youth's surprise morphed into brooding annoyance. "You've got some balls."

Dante pulled his fist back, stone gripped tightly in his palm, and rammed it straight into the guy's face. He dropped to the ground with a heavy thud, and Dante stared down at his unconscious form. "That was too easy."

**~...~**

Dante sat himself down with a tired grunt, and studied the person chained securely to a chair in front of him. The guy's resemblance to him was uncanny. Definitely, without a doubt, related to Sparda. Ironic that he'd discover he had living, breathing relatives when he'd been convinced he was the only one left. Now there were two, three if he counted the baby, people who had a direct link to him.

He leaned forward, scrutinizing the strapping youth for another moment, before letting out a drawn out sigh. He reached out and gave the kid a good slap against the cheek.

"Time to wake up, sleepy head." Dante said, and gave him another little smack for good measure.

The young man stirred, and his eyes shot open when he realized he couldn't move his arms. He blinked down at his tied up form, glanced around the shop slowly, and his gaze stuck on Sparda's sword mounted on the wall. For a long second he stared, and finally he turned his attention to Dante. He let out a quiet groan.

"My _head_... what did you hit me with?"

Dante relaxed back into his chair, lifted his leg to rest his ankle on his knee. He tossed the glowing blue-black demon stone into the air and caught it casually. Recognition dawned on the young face across from him.

"Bastard."

Dante dropped his foot back on the ground and bent closer to the guy, his motions so abrupt and quick that the kid actually flinched.

"What's your deal? Why are you so stuck on ditching your kid with me? What makes him so special?" Dante demanded.

The young man clenched his jaw and held Dante's gaze evenly. "Ah, but it is _you_ who is special, Dante."

"Dude, flattery will get you nowhere. Now give me a proper answer, or I'll put a few holes in your chest." Dante said, and motioned to Coyote-A on the desk beside him.

A rakish grin spread across the guy's lips. He shook his head, amusement dancing in his eyes. "I'm not blowing smoke up your pipe, you imbecile. You are well known throughout the demon world as the legendary devil hunter. Even here in the human world, you have a reputation that exceeds all others. Like your old man." His lips quirked and his tone turned almost mocking at the last.

Dante folded his hands together slowly. The youth's gaze darted to the movement nervously before meeting his gaze dead on.

"So?" Dante bit the word off.

"So it makes sense that you are the only one capable of protecting that baby," he said impatiently. "Devils run screaming when they hear your name. Not even I have that effect on them, y'know."

"You got a name, kid?" Dante asked, and felt a tremor of exasperation shake through him when the guy stared back at him steadily. "Okay. Fine. What exactly is it that you want me to protect the baby from?"

"Demons. Humans. The worlds." The youth said slowly, and there was a cold edge to his words. "He will always be in danger. Until you can get him to the point where he can look out for himself, his life is in your hands."

"That's a pretty big assumption on your part. What if I don't give a damn?"

"Let me clarify. If anything happens to him, I will come for you. I will inflict horrors on you that hell itself could never handle - I will break you until you beg for death." The guy said with calm conviction.

Chilly fingers prodded the back of Dante's neck at the words. Every inch of the guy screamed carefully restrained rage. It was enough to make the snide remark on the tip of his tongue run back down his throat. "I get the picture."

"Good." The guy gave a satisfied smile.

"But I'm not interested." Dante said. A shadow fell across the younger man's face. Dante added, "Sorry. I'm pretty busy trying to keep my own ass alive, so unless there's something in it for me..."

"How about your life?" the guy said through gritted teeth.

Dante snorted in reply, and gave him a withering look. "I mean moneywise. I'm barely providing for myself as it is. Kids equal expenses. I can't do it, unless you pay me."

"I do not have the resources you are asking of me. But there is no one else – _no one else_ – that I will entrust with this task. Speaking of which," the young man's eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown. "Where is he?"

Dante let out a long-suffering breath and observed the guy's expression when he realized the baby was nowhere in sight. Realization. Alarm. Panic entwined with rage. Fear was the most dominant emotion on the young face.

"How about we make a deal?" Dante said, and the wide, fierce eyes locked onto him silently. "The woman that came with you last night. You tell me where I can find her, and I'll tell you where you can find the baby."

Total turmoil brushed over the youth. "I _can't_, you stubborn dimwit. It's my duty to protect her, as it's yours to protect that baby. Leading you to her means risking her safety – risking _everything_ we've strived to accomplish. She has no role to play in your life. And _you_ have no purpose to confront her. Now where the hell is that baby?"

"He's safe. I left him in capable hands. Why should I tell you where he is, any way, if you're just going to dump him on me again?"

"_Where_?"

"You tell me what I want to know, and I'll tell you."

Dante sat back quickly when the chains binding the kid snapped and rolled off his arms like spaghetti. He reached for Coyote-A, and had it in his grasp the same instant the young man tackled him off the chair. They hit the floor hard in a chorus of 'oomphs'. The kid was far stronger than Dante had anticipated, even with the demon stone lying only a few feet away from them.

Dante was flat on his back, and the kid raised his fist to deliver a good blow right in his face when a shot rang through the store. The youth rolled off Dante suddenly and hit the desk so hard it went crashing over. Dante leapt to his feet in one smooth agile move, his aim still right on target, ready to pull the trigger again if he felt the need to.

"What the hell are you thinking?" Dante snapped.

The young man was scuttling away from him across the floor, one hand pressed to his chest. Red blood pumped through his fingers and dripped on the wood floorboards, and his face was carved with lines of pain. His eyes were slightly dazed as he stared back up at Dante, and then they focussed on the gun in his hand.

"I really do despise those things," he grumbled, and glanced over his shoulder when he backed up against the wall. His eye caught on the sword mounted above him, and he reached a weak hand to snatch it off.

Dante paused and tilted his head to the side, watching the kid curiously when he grabbed hold of Sparda's sword. He was too weak to fight him off. He could barely hold the sword up, struggled momentarily to get a good grip on the hilt, and then slouched back against the wall with the sword draped across his lap.

"I don't... want to fight you..." The kid said in a strained voice, and pointed the sword at Dante with a trembling arm. A minute later the sword's blade dropped to the floor, and the kid let out a shaky breath.

"Listen, kid," Dante said after a moment's hesitation, and he crouched down in front of him. "I'm not your guy. That baby will be in a lot more danger around me. I'm a magnet for evil, I'm always fighting off one or the other insane entity..."

"...But I will kick your ass... if you don't tell me where I can find the baby..." the kid panted, and winced as he tried to straighten up. "...I have other more... unpleasant ways... of extracting information from you..."

"Yeah?" Dante said sceptically. "You look pretty much out of commission, if you ask me."

"I'm a little rusty. I haven't had to fight for a while." The young man said defiantly.

"Look, just sit still and wait for it to heal. You can heal, can't you?" Dante said, eyeing the blood stained fingers and soaked shirt uncertainly. "It will hurt less if you just sit it out."

The young man gave a breathy chortle. "I've seen worse." He hadn't even finished the sentence before he moved.

Dante found himself literally pinned to the floor with the hilt of the sword protruding from his chest. The first question that winked through his stunned mind was _how the hell did he move so fast_?

The second thing that consumed his mind was the nasty, sharp and stinging pain cracking through his chest. Every little breath hurt. He felt the heat of blood gushing from the wound, turning chilly as it soaked down his shirt and pooled on the floor beneath him. His mouth got a quick, foil-like taste, and Dante turned his head to spit up blood.

The kid loomed over him with a small, triumphant sneer. "Don't mess with me again, Dante. You will always come second. Are you going to tell me where the baby is?"

"Go to hell." Dante choked out.

"Thought so." He said with an impatient sigh. "I warned you."

He pressed his fingers to Dante's temples.  
Animated images flashed through Dante's mind; memories resurfaced down to the smallest of details as though he was thrown back into time, back into those moments, reliving everything as though they weren't memories but real events that had never occurred before. The first visions to clog his mind were of his childhood – a play date on the beach with his brother and a couple of neighbouring kids. The vision passed, and his mind flicked through the memories like he was fast forwarding a movie. Glimpses of this and that. Again another vision paused momentarily, playing itself out. _'Wow, cool!' 'Thanks, Mom!'_ And Eva's brilliant, warm smile as she handed two identical shiny amulets to greedy, excited child-like hands.

"What are you doing?" Dante ground out through his teeth, straining his head back against the floor in an attempt to escape the kid's fingers.

"Shut up." The young man shot back, and his fingers pressed harder.

Shifting through the images, one after the other with dizzying speed. It stuck on another memory – one where Dante felt a numbing terror holding him paralysed, peeking at a horrific scene from a shadowy nook created in a bashed up wall. "_Run, Dante!" _His mother's cry.

"Get out of my head!" Dante growled, jerking his head back into the floor with a painful thud. The fingers didn't relent._"You mustn't come out! No matter what happens, keep hiding. Dante, you mustn't come out!"_ Eva's pale, petrified features swam in front of his eyes. The blood curdling screams that followed when she pulled away from him. _"No! Vergil!" "Mom!" _Blades singing through the air. Distorted gurgles from demons. Painful cries. Silence. Then, "_They're dead." "All of them?" "Yes, I killed all of them." _A demented, malicious bout of mirth resounded mockingly and frighteningly through the destroyed room.

"I know that voice." The kid above Dante murmured thoughtfully, and blinked at the death glare Dante was giving him.

"I'm going to kill you." Dante said icily.

"Of course you are." The kid said with obvious scorn.

More images flitted past Dante's eyes, every memory good and bad yanked out from his subconscious and discarded; his life literally replayed through his mind. There were pauses on scraps of memories. His own voice, young, bitter, and mocking. _"Father?"_ A cold chuckle. "_I don't have a father."_

Dante cringed and held his breath. Fingers coiled around the hilt in his chest firmly.  
_"Why do you refuse to gain more power?""What are you going to do with all that power, huh? No matter how hard you try, you're never gonna be like father." "...Our souls are at odds, brother. I need more power." "Come on, get up, you can do better than that..."_

Dante gave the sword one good hard tug, and the blade loosened from the floor beneath him, unpinning him. The young man's eyes darted toward Dante's hand slowly pulling the sword from his chest, but he didn't seem alarmed or surprised at the deed.

Memory of the cathedral, the restored city of Fortuna, the path to Nero's quaint little apartment, yellow walls, Nero's heated voice "_try it, and I'll burn your store down",_ Kyrie with swollen teary eyes cradling a wriggling bundle in her arms...  
The sword came out freely, and Dante swung at the young man. The kid was quick and light on his feet and dodged out of the way easily.

"C'me here, you little son of a..." Dante snarled, flipping onto his feet and charging the youngster, fully intent on killing the scumbag.

The kid did a smooth twirl out of Dante's line of attack and made a mocking bow. "Nice try, but you're going to have to try harder than that." He gave a salute, and flashed a cocky grin. "See ya."

Dante blinked, and stumbled mid-swing when the kid disappeared into thin air in front of him. "_Damn it!"_

**~....~**


	7. Distraction

It was all a downright dirty ploy. Dante knew it, and he fought against the strange urge to comply to the plan. The guy was messing with his head –that was it.  
He'd waited all day for there to be another knock on his door. He waited for the guy to pitch up again and shove the baby in his face. Dante struggled to stay awake that night, and drifted in and out of restless sleep. Each time he opened his eyes and came to, he expected to see the baby back in the shop. When morning arrived in soft rose and lavender, there was still nothing.

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not. His anger had simmered down in the meanwhile, and gave him time to debate what to do next. He wanted to wring that kid's neck, not as a means of revenge but more to teach him a lesson. Dante was not one to be played around with like that.  
One more hour. He'd wait one more hour, and then the guy will show up again, or the baby will be right outside his doorstep. An hour passed with a no show.

Pizza. He'd head down to the diner, stuff his face, and put this whole incident from his mind. Move on. But even when he slid into his chosen booth at the diner, and devoured his favourite pizza in a matter of minutes, he couldn't get his head clear. Mind games, that's what the kid was doing.

Dante walked home with brooding thoughts milling in his head. What was he getting so worked up about? He didn't want the baby anyway –he ought to be happy it wasn't back to pest him. Maybe the kid sucked it up and just took the baby back. That could be it. Perhaps it scared the kid off when he'd seen just what an unstable halfling Dante was – no one had dared venture into Dante's head before. It was enough to give you nightmares.

Time seemed to slow down. He wasn't convinced that the baby wouldn't magically appear back in Devil May Cry until that evening. A whole day wasted, waiting for nothing. Dante sunk into bed late that night, pushing aside the thought that maybe he wasn't supposed to be waiting for it. Maybe he was supposed to go fetch it.

He slept in the next morning, something he rarely did. He woke with a headache, and contemplated spending the rest of the day in bed, when something soft and cool touched his back. He tensed instinctively, hand drawing out Ivory and aimed at whatever it was before his mind caught up to the action.

Dante blinked at the tight figure clothed in burgundy leather, and dropped his defence with a sleepy grunt. He pushed off the bed and dragged himself to a set of drawers in the corner. He wiggled into a pair of black pants, and caught the lady watching him in the mirror. There was no hint of embarrassment or awkwardness when her gaze met his evenly.

"Couldn't wait until I'm decent?" Dante grumbled with a faint frown, looking away from her as he scouted for a shirt. "Unless there was something you wanted, Trish."

"There is, actually. I've got a job for you." Trish said, observing him for another curious moment before elegantly rising from the bed. "Interested?"

Dante pursed his lips and stared back at her. He yanked the shirt over his head. "Sure. I wasn't doing anything else anyway."

**~...~**

The days that followed melted into one another as Dante hurled himself into mission after mission. Helping a family get rid of a demon that had been pestering them for generations; slaughtering a succubus draining and killing wedded men in a small town not far off; knocking sense into another power-hungry human who thought he wanted to become a devil. Dante even went fishing for a malicious water nymph abducting humble fishermen at a harbour village.

The upside of it was that he was making more money than he usually did in a month. The downside was that his persistent chasing, hunting and killing of the demonic meant there was no time for his body to recuperate and heal fast enough. A blow that he would normally brush off and recover from a second later, slowed him down by minutes and weakened him easily. His fighting skills became sloppy, to the extent that Morrison called in backup to haul Dante out of the job he was working on.

He was screwed the second the dark, fire-breathing entity took a swing at him and sent him slamming into a wall. His head gave a heavy, dull throb, and he thought he was going to be sick right then. He blinked hard and wiped the blood from his eyes with an enraged grumble. He sent a dual of bullets at the demon, but his aim was off, his vision out of synch. More demons sprouted from a swirling portal near his right. Lesser demons, but hundreds of the things. Dante pulled himself to his feet and leaned against the wall for support, his fire never ceasing, foggy mind flicking through possible actions he could perform to take out the demons and not get himself killed in the process. He couldn't think straight, though. He was too weak. He was no good.

The king demon hovered over him and opened its gaping mouth, stained razor teeth gleaming red at him through the dark. Sulphuric breath washed over his face and Dante nearly gagged as the stench drew into his lungs. The bullets hindered the demon for only a moment before it retaliated.

Dante rolled out of the way when a current of electric orange fire streamed from the roaring demon. It missed him by inches but the intense heat scorched his arm, and his mind threatened to black out at the pain. Maybe he should just drop unconscious. It might actually give his body time to recover while he was out. But one glance at the demon horde around him told Dante he probably wouldn't wake up – they'd tear him to pieces.

Dante tried to scramble out of the way when the demon launched at him. The black mass was going to crush him and knock him out. He was going to die at the hand of a retarded vengeful dragon-like demon. What a way for the infamous son of Sparda to go out, Dante thought bitterly.

A loud boom ricocheted through the night, announcing the arrival of a saving grace. The demon above him was blown back by what looked like a glowing cannonball, and a supple figure in a white top and dark shorts strutted smack into the middle of the chaotic scene with fearless vigour. Another boom sounded up and several demons flew into the air on impact. He only knew who it was by the colour of her clothing, because his eyes couldn't focus on details.

Dante turned his head slowly when he felt something jab into his arm, and he stared in mystification at the demon blinking back at him with fiery red eyes, its teeth sunk deep into his flesh. Even his pain reaction was slow when Dante tried to yank away from the thing, and he pressed the barrel of Ebony into the demon's head before blowing it right off. The other demons took this as an invitation and descended on Dante from every direction. He swatted at them angrily, feebly trying to get to his feet. "Get off me you little shits..."

"Get him out of here!" Lady ordered, her voice carrying an uncharacteristic note of worry.

Something bright flashed. The demons clinging to Dante dropped off him like stunned ticks, and then several hands were propelling him away from the fight. Everything around him blurred. A vaguely familiar voice was speaking to him in urgent tones, but the words were distorted and faint in his ears. He could hear his own breathing resounding in his head; heavy, shallow, ragged – and then there was nothing.

**~...~**

It was a weird feeling, waking up after blacking out. Knowing that time had passed, and that he was inexplicably transported from a dark alley in the middle of the night, to a familiar bed in the comforting haven of his shop with sunlight pooling over him and dripping down onto the floor.

Dante propped himself up with his elbows and scanned the room briefly. His weapons were on the dresser, his coat nothing but a pile of torn leather on the floor next to it. He sat up and slowly flexed his arms and legs. Satisfied that everything was still in working order, Dante swung his long legs over the side of his bed and got up. The wounds had healed, leaving his skin unmarred and smooth as velvet. Someone had even taken the initiative to clean him up.

He pulled on clothes and was sent downstairs by his rumbling stomach. How long had he been out?  
Then again, who the hell cared? His job had been cut short, and if it got finished it meant he wasn't getting any compensation for the damage he'd inflicted. Damn it.

His steps slowed down when he looked up and spotted Lady lounging carelessly in his chair. Trish was perched on the edge of the desk, lithe legs dangling seductively over the side, the antique phone pressed to her ear.

"Make yourselves at home, why don't you?" Dante said, sauntering over to the bar fridge.

"Idiot." Lady said.

Dante retrieved a can of tomato juice and turned to her questioningly. "What are you doing in my shop? And get out of my chair."

"Waiting for you to drag your sorry ass out of bed. You were half dead when the others got you back here. Thought it would be only decent for me to hang around until you got better, so I could tell you face to face that I collected the money for your last job," Lady said, crossing her legs and giving him an arrogant smile.

"You were in worse shape than after that incident with Nina and Patty." Morrison spoke up, and Dante nearly dropped his juice in surprise. He turned toward the older man, comfortably reclined on one of the couches. His hair was unusually rumpled, his suit wrinkled, and there were dark bags beneath his eyes. Dante cocked his head to the side and studied him for a curious second, and then guilt punched him right between the eyes.

"You were worried." Dante said quietly.

"I was starting to have my doubts whether you'd pull through or not. Trish wouldn't let me take you to hospital, though. She said you'd heal in time. She was right, obviously." Morrison admitted, and his gaze avoided Dante's. "Patty stopped by, too. She left that for you."

Dante turned in the direction Morrison indicated, and walked over to the pool table. A stuffed toy holding a floating balloon with _get well soon_ scrawled across it sat on the green surface, and beneath it a flat piece of glossy paper peeked up at him. Dante pulled it out, and grinned. _Voucher for unlimited strawberry sundaes_ with the diner name in print beneath it. He wondered if Patty knew what demon she was unleashing with this gesture.

"You're taking a little holiday, by the way." Morrison added. Dante turned to him with an arched eyebrow. "You've been overworking yourself lately. You need a break from this."

"We're partners, Morrison. There's no way in hell you can lay me off. This is what I do, and I call the shots where my health is concerned." Dante said, pointing a warning finger at him. "I know my limits."

"I don't think you do, Dante." Morrison shook his head. He didn't flinch when Dante glared at him. "You've been out for a fortnight, you know. Your wounds didn't start to heal until a couple of days ago."

Dante opened his mouth, but shut it and dropped his hand, stumped. "What?"

"Maybe you're getting too old for this job," Lady suggested.

Dante extended his hand in her direction and pulled a finger at her in response. His gaze remained fixed on Morrison's pale face, though. "So maybe I have been overdoing it a bit. So what? Are you complaining? I haven't made us this much money since... well... ever."

"You've got to take it easy for a while. Lady offered to take over the assignments while you're on leave..." Morrison started.

"Like hell she is!" Dante cut him off and cast a grumpy glare at Lady's smirking face. "If I get a call with the password, it's _mine_, get it? No one else..." Dante trailed off when he motioned to the phone, and frowned.

Trish had one finger pressed to her ear, and was leaning forward slightly, listening intently to whoever was on the other line. She hadn't spoken once. Dante walked over to her, but Trish pulled away from him when he tried to take the phone from her. The look on her face was one of contained impatience. A warning flashed in her blue eyes, and she held one finger up to silence him when he opened his mouth to protest. A little spark leapt off the tip of her finger, and Dante backed away from her dejectedly.

"Who's on the phone?" Dante directed the question to Morrison.

"Don't know."

"Sounded like Nero to me." Lady said helpfully. Dante felt something in his chest jar painfully, and his eyes flashed to Trish quickly.

"Did he say what it's about?" Dante asked, swallowing his prideful anger and addressing Lady frankly.

"Nooo. Sounded serious, though. He's not a happy boy."

There was a long, drawn out silence before Trish let out a quiet sigh, and finally spoke. "Do you need him to come to you then?" She waited, and arched her eyebrows when she looked at Dante oddly. "All right. Yes. I'll let him know. See you soon." Trish put the receiver down, and her hand lingered on it for a moment before she straightened up from the desk.

"What's up?" Dante demanded.

Trish gave him a measuring look, and smiled. "We're having company."


	8. Angels Fall

Dante retreated several steps from her. There was an underlying coldness in her gaze when she looked at him, and that smile held the promise of unimaginable pain if he set his foot wrong.

"What company?" Morrison asked.

"Enji is coming to stay with us." Trish said, holding Dante's gaze squarely. "Want to enlighten everyone else about this, Dante?"

"Me?" Dante repeated blankly. "I don't know any Enji."

"Apparently you do. He's your son, according to Nero."

"I-" Dante started and frowned hard. "Now wait a minute, I never said..."

"You don't have to admit it. Nero knows. He's certain of it." Trish said and wandered closer to him, her smile melting away. Dante held his ground – come hell or heaven, he wasn't going to let her intimidate him on his own turf.

"You're kidding, right?" Lady asked from behind the desk. "I mean... Dante's hardly father material."

"Hey, I had nothing to do with..." Dante trailed off defiantly. "C'mon, Morrison, back me up here."

"I don't think Dante is responsible." Morrison nodded in agreement, occupying himself by lighting a cigarette.

Dante stared at him for a second, blinked slowly, and then turned to the two glaring women. "Thanks a lot, pal. That sure convinced them."

"You can deny it all you want, Dante, but Kyrie was approached by the mother. And according to _her_, that baby is definitely yours and should be left in your care." Trish said dangerously. "That's why they are on their way here."

Dante wandered over to his desk and lifted the chair to tip it over, but Lady reacted quickly before he could have the satisfaction of dumping her on the floor. She flew to her feet and turned to give him a blasé pout.

'"What a load of bullshit." Dante snapped and dropped into the chair. He propped his feet up on the desk and flashed Lady a half-hearted grin. "Next thing you know, I'm going to be carrying the blame for Nero's existence, too."

"Well, smartass?" Lady arched an eyebrow, and flashed him a confident smirk. "What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to pull a runner?"

"Get lost." Dante shot back, and jerked away when Trish put her hand on his shoulder. "Why are you all ganging up on me? I'll take you all down, you know that. Right?"

"I wouldn't try get out of this if I were you, Dante," Trish said flatly. His skin went cold when she withdrew her hand from him. "Nero called from a phone booth two blocks away. They'll be here any..."

Trish stopped suddenly, and all eyes lifted to the ceiling. A deep thrum had begun to vibrate through the floor and it shook the foundations of the building. One of the fans dropped from the ceiling and crashed hard onto the floor a few feet away from them. The sky rapidly grew dark outside. Something flashed in his peripheral vision, and Dante slowly turned his head toward Sparda's sword. He narrowed his gaze at it suspiciously. What the hell was going on?

Trish strolled over to the window and stared out for a second before retreating quickly. A high pitched, steady buzzing noise seemed to emanate from everywhere. The air became heavy and crackled with oppressive energy around them. Lady darted toward the window with fearless grace, and stared.

"What the-" Morrison had risen to his feet, and exchanged looks with Dante.

"Oh... my fucking hell," Lady exploded quietly. "It's the Order. I thought you dealt with this, Dante."

"The who?" Morrison demanded.

"I thought the Order was dead." Dante said. His eyes sent a silent thanks when Trish appeared beside him and handed him Rebellion. She flashed him a lopsided smile, and joined Lady at the window.

"Well." Lady said. She picked up Kalina Ann where it was leaning against the wall, and swung the slick black rocket launcher onto her back with trained ease. "Not yet, they're not." She flung the door open and disappeared outside before Dante could get a word in.

Trish followed close behind, and Dante sent a glance at Morrison. "You'd better get out of here."

"You don't need to tell me twice." Morrison said.

A faint female scream ripped through the air outside, cut off by a resounding boom that was undoubtedly Lady's work. Dante started toward the door just as two figures came crashing into the store. Kyrie was crying hysterically, folded double and clutching the baby tightly to her, stumbling over her feet into the shop. Nero was steering her inside, draped over her like a shield, and his entire back looked like he'd been put through a meat shredder.

The moment the door slammed shut behind them, Nero let go of her and leaned back against the wall. He was breathing heavily, his face pale and strained. "They... they're after the baby..." Nero panted out.

Dante pushed him down on the couch by the shoulder. "Sit this one out, kid. I'll take care of them."

Dante stepped outside. He gauged the predicament before him with a mere glance. The sky was black with Alto and Bianco Angelos. The buzzing noise was the sound of their collective wings holding them airborne. An entire army of gold and white armour flashed ominously back down at him. Lady fired another round of rockets, dropping several demons from the sky like fiery meteors. Trish joined Dante's side, and in one classy move brought forth Luce and Ombra.

"Ready?" Trish asked with gleaming eyes.

Dante broke out in a devious smile. "Let's rock, babe." He leapt into the air and seized hold of the nearest demon's foot. He used it as leverage and threw himself into the air, landing a powerful kick on one demon's head – the helmet flew off its shoulders and the armour collapsed – to launch himself at the rest of the fleet, sword extended. The demons themselves became his stepping stones, keeping him airborne and eye level with his opponents. Lady blew clutters of the things out of the air, and Trish finished them off as they hit the ground.

Dante thought they were doing well until another fleet of demons rose up from seemingly out of nowhere. An ocean of them. They were outnumbered by far – there was no way the three of them were going to keep these things at bay. He was in the midst of blocking a hit with Rebellion and kicking another demon's chest out of proportion behind him when Lady's distressed cry from below made him look down. She was unarmed and, from what Dante could only guess, had tried to kick the Alto Angelo advancing on her. It didn't quite work out. She was sprawled on the ground and trying to drag herself away from it, her leg twisted in an abnormal way. Fucking wonderful.

Dante ripped the sword from the demon in front of him, sliced the demonic entity in half from shoulder to hip with Rebellion, and leapt to the ground below. He managed to take several more demons down with him on his descent, slamming heads together and kicking another one right into the sharp tip of his fellow angelo's sword. His jump was straight on target, and he knocked the demon down before it could lift its arm to decapitate Lady. He thrust the sword through the demon's head into the ground, and picked Lady up in his arms.

"Put me down, you shithead! I can still fight." Lady protested angrily, but Dante barely heard her.

He darted past moving blades, brushed past Trish standing guard outside the door, and burst into the shop. "We need to revert to another plan. Anyone got any Holy Water on them?" Dante demanded and carefully lowered Lady onto the couch beside a wounded Nero.

"Holy water won't kill those things." Nero said, and hauled himself to his feet. "I can fight, but I don't want to leave Kyrie unprotected."

"I know," Dante scowled, and made to head outside to join Trish. "You need to get a way out of here. These things mean business... where is it?" Dante jolted to a halt, staring at the blank wall behind his desk. He scanned the shop for a second. It was gone.

"Where's what?" Nero frowned.

"How do we get out of here without any of those things seeing us?" Morrison asked.

"It's out there." Lady said with a small nod toward the door. "Didn't you see him? He was right behind you."

"_What?_" Dante demanded, and strode outside.

Lady was right. The cocky kid was standing right in the middle of the road, dressed in a pair of Levi's, worn out sneakers, and a grey hooded jersey. His pose was rigid, his expression stony – and he held Sparda's sword in his hand. Where'd the little bastard come from?

Trish was standing a few feet away from him, holding her weapons as though she wasn't quite sure whether to put them away or not. The kid, in comparison, was giving her a very peculiar look. His eyes darted from Trish to focus on Dante.

"Hey! Who the hell do you think you are, you punk!" Dante roared furiously, strolling toward the guy, the fleet of demons hovering above them momentarily forgotten. The only people to ever handle Sparda's sword were him and Trish – everyone else was always hung up on trying to become as powerful as Sparda when they had it in their possession.

The kid blinked at him, startled, and slowly started backing away. "Looks like you need a hand."

"From _you_? Gimme the sword before I rip you apart, kid." Dante said heatedly, boots thudding heavily on the ground as he advanced on the boy.

The youth shook his head, and stopped. His shoulders heaved in a sigh. He lifted Sparda's sword over his shoulder, readjusted his grip on it. Dante thought he was going to have to try snatch it away, like little kids did when one refused to share a toy with another. The young man pursed his lips, shoulders tensed, and then he moved.

The sword swung through the air when the kid spun in a low circle and came to a stop in a half-kneeling position. The slight action caused havoc – something powerful slammed into the surrounding buildings. Windows cracked, tiles sailed off roofs, streetlights fell over, and the invisible force wiped both Trish and Dante right off their feet. There was no sound, no after-effect. Dante leapt back to his feet, and wrenched Trish to safety when a breath later, gold and white armour rained from the sky and crashed to the ground with a resounding clatter.

Dante turned only for a second, but when he turned back, the kid was gone. Sparda's sword was leaning up against the wall beside him. He surveyed the mess littering the streets, and an angry growl worked its way up his throat. Teleporting wimp... how the hell did he do this much damage with so little effort?

Trish stepped out of his embrace a moment later, staring at the sword with a daunting expression on her face. "I thought he was dead."

Dante glanced down at her. "It's not him."

"It's not?" Trish asked uncertainly, and studied her pistols with new eyes. "Are you sure? How could you be sure? That power..."

"It's not Vergil." Dante said and stepped away from her. "It's the kid that keeps ditching the baby on me."

Trish's head snapped up, and she stared hard at him. "No." She said thoughtfully, and narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "You're right. It's not Vergil."

The door flew open next to them, and Morrison peered outside cautiously."Is it over already?"

"Yeah." Dante said. He paused and gave Trish a silent, observing glance. She knew something he didn't. He knew that look on her face all too well. He reached out and grabbed Sparda's sword before dragging it into the store behind him. "Get her to a hospital, will ya?" He said, sending a glance at a quietly writhing Lady.

Lady didn't protest as much as she had with Dante when Morrison and Nero helped her outside. Dante went and crouched down in front of Kyrie. Her tears had dried up, her innocent face pale and strained. He glanced at the baby in her arms.

"He is your responsibility." Kyrie said quietly to his cool gaze.

"Who's the mother?" Dante asked, trying to keep himself in check. Something inside of him was shaking, and he didn't know whether the cause was fear or rage.

"I can't tell you." Kyrie said, and looked away from him. "But she seemed to know you a little. She said you'll take him in, because you have a good heart, and you fight for the just. She said she trusts you with her life. With his life." Kyrie said, and carefully held the baby to him.

"Did she... did she look like Trish?" Dante dropped his voice to a near whisper. He could see Trish from the corner of his eye, though; her head tilted to the side at his words. She'd heard him. Well, damn, of course she did – like he could do _anything_ in secret where she was concerned.

"I don't know." Kyrie said, sending a startled glance at Trish before looking him in the eye. "It was dark. She wouldn't show herself to me. She said it was better that nobody knows who she is."

Dante let out a disappointed sigh, and dropped himself into the couch beside her. He studied her for a moment. His gaze unsettled her, because Kyrie stiffened and shifted away from him a little. Dante rubbed the bridge of his nose and leaned forward on his knees.

"You're not hurt, are you?" Dante asked.

"No. We're fine, but Nero..."

"Nero will be okay." Dante said with a wave of disregard. "So."

There was a long awkward silence before Dante spoke again. "Enji, huh?"

"Yes." Kyrie said in a subdued voice. "I had to name him something. It felt impersonal and cold to just refer to him as 'the baby'."

"Why didn't you just call him Dante Junior? Everybody else seems convinced he's mine."

"Enji has a nicer ring to it." Kyrie said lightly. "And I did name him for you." She added, and gestured to his marred red trench coat. When Dante looked at her, she offered him a warm, gentle smile that made him shift away from her in turn. He wasn't used to people being nice to him, and Kyrie did nothing but unnerve him. She was completely out of his league of expertise.

"Well... any name is as good as the next, I guess." Dante shrugged awkwardly, and sent a glance at Trish. "You're not going to run out on me, are you?"

Trish looked back at him with a grin. "No, but I'm not going to be doing your job either. You're on a break, right? Plenty of time for you and Enji to bond," Trish said in amusement.

"So what do I do with it...him, when I do get a call for a job?" Dante asked. "I don't have money for a babysitter."

"If you need someone to keep an eye on him, you can always ask me." Kyrie said hopefully. "And we've made arrangements to have the nursery equipment delivered here, so you don't have to worry about buying anything new. And if you ever need anything, I'm just a phone call away."

"Does that mean I _have_ to keep him?" Dante grumbled.

"Oh, I'm sure you two will get on just fine."


	9. Baby Year

**Beware of (dirty)fluff. There is much of it to come next chapter.**

**~...~**

Dante wasn't happy, and for a long time he professed this to everyone he came in contact with. As though he didn't already have a hard time getting some decent rest in, it had become a mission in itself to catch some shut eye with a baby under his wing. Not that Enji himself was the problem – it was everything that was after him that became a nuisance. A month after having his pride and joy, Devil May Cry, turned into what could have passed for a crèche, Dante woke up in the middle of the night with the sound of the baby making little choking noises in his cot.

He'd been too tired to get up right away, and listened intently for the faint noise to pass. Enji had a knack for choking on his pacifier at night, and Dante waited for the little guy to spit out, just like he always did. There was a moment of silence, and Dante closed his eyes again, relaxing.

Another faint noise rose from the cot ominously. Dante rolled out of bed, exhausted, and bent over the side of the cot in the dark, blindly patting down the writhing little body until he felt the head. His fingers trailed down to grab hold of the dummy, and curled around something hot and rubbery instead. Dante's fingers clenched into a fist, and he ripped whatever the hell it was away from the baby. The moment he did, Enji's distraught cries sliced through the cold night.

Whatever it was, it was strong and struggling vigorously in Dante's grip. There was a cold numbness that shook through him, and he found the light switch. Hairy demons clung to the ceiling like flattened spiders, green eyes flinching at the sudden brightness, long tentacles drooping down to the floor like streams of black rubber. Soul suckers. Dante sent a wary glance at the wailing Enji, his little face bright red and tears running down the side of his face. The numbness turned to deadly steel.

From outside a crazy display of bright flashes could be seen through the upper window of the building, accompanied by ear-shattering gunshots. Once the chaos died down a few minutes later, there was nothing but the sound of a baby's heart wrenching sobs. Then, silence.

**~...~**

Enji was getting to be a handful when he became mobile. Dante would put him down on his play mat and head over to the bar to grab a cold one, and when he'd turn back Enji would have rolled underneath the table and sent Dante into a frenzy trying to find him. He wouldn't admit it, because he didn't want to be seen as a softy, but he'd become very protective of the little guy after that first episode when they'd been alone. Enji needed protecting, he needed somebody who could kick demon ass – and kicking demon ass was what Dante did best.

Fathering a baby, maybe not so much. The handbooks of child rearing were still brand new and untouched on the shelf simply because he couldn't be bored enough to read them. Dante didn't know what the hell the kid was crying for half the time, and he decided that nothing in those books could really prepare him for what he was being put through anyway. Feeding Enji incorporated tricks and improvised tactics – Dante never would have guessed feeding a fussy baby could be so mind-blowing stimulating. No one warned him about damage control either – there were tiny marks on the legs of his desk where Enji had decided to unleash his wrath of teething.

He had to grow eyes on the back of his head somehow. Keeping Enji safe from demons was a piece of a cake. Keeping Enji safe from Enji was a whole different story. Even with three more pairs of eyes in the store, the baby still miraculously found ways to make anyone's hair stand on end.

Dante was rummaging through a desk drawer to find his deck of poker cards on Patty's request. Nero was scrounging the cupboards for something to drink while Kyrie went in search of clean cups, and Patty was unpacking poker chips on the low table by the couch. Enji was under his play gym – or he was supposed to be.

Dante's head snapped up when Kyrie dropped a cup with a terrified gasp. "No... Enji, put that down!"

Dante followed her gaze, and felt his blood turn to ice. He nearly knocked his desk over in his rush, and had the palm of his hand separating Enji's nose from the black barrel of Ebony a fraction of a second before a loud shot screamed through the store. Dante clenched his teeth, heart racing unpleasantly hard in his chest, and withdrew the pistol from the chubby little hands. Enji's round blue eyes filled with tears and he stared back at Dante almost accusingly.

Dante released the barrel, and shook his hand hard. Blood scattered on the floor, and a bullet dropped to the wood with a small 'cling'. Dante picked it up, barely glancing at the gaping wound in his hand, and turned startled eyes on the others. Everyone was staring at him. Patty didn't move from her seat on the couch, but Kyrie darted forward and scooped Enji into her arms, away from him.

Nobody said anything. They didn't have to. Guilt burned through Dante while he watched Kyrie distract an upset and confused Enji with a soft soccer ball. Shit. That was way too close – and far too negligent. Enji couldn't walk yet, but Dante knew he should have known better. Nobody in their right mind would leave arsenal lying about with kids around. It was careless, he berated himself.

The store got a thorough baby-proofing that same day. Not on anyone's request, but on Dante's own initiative. It was unlike Dante to try fix anything himself – he usually just let things die until somebody else did the dirty work for him – and when Nero offered to help out, Dante didn't decline. Even after the store was completely revamped into a safety zone; there were padded sponges strapped to the sharp edges of tables and chairs, all wall sockets were covered with plastic, even the walls were padded with cot bumpers, and Dante's weapons were securely put away in a location Enji wouldn't be able to reach for years to come; Dante was still shaken by the whole incident.

He didn't let Enji from his sight until the following morning, when he put the baby in his playpen in the bedroom and raced for the chance to take a shower. Dante's senses were on high alert all the while, waiting to pick up on the slightest hint of demonic presence outside the closed bathroom door. He was so intent on that, that he didn't realize Enji had gone suspiciously quiet at first. Dante threw on a pair of pants and was pulling a shirt over his head when he stepped back into the bedroom.

The first thing that hit him was the smell. His eyes widened in horror at the scene before him, and angry frustration throbbed through him. "No...Enji, oh, no, no, _no._" Dante shouted, hands pulling through his frost blonde hair in genuine agitation. "Shit!"

**~...~**

Devil May Cry was quiet when Trish opened the door. It was routine by now, stopping by every couple of days for the past few months to stock up on whatever necessities Enji might have. And, of course, to check if Dante still had all his pigs in the sty. He wasn't too bad for a first time dad.

Trish had found it quite amusing when she'd walk in and find Dante passed out on the couch, obviously with another rough night behind him, empty beer bottle in hand – and Enji fast asleep on his chest, his baby bottle still in mouth, dribbling milk all over Dante's shirt. Birds of a feather, in her eyes.

The cool fans were a relief from the scorching heat of day outside. Armed with bags of disposable nappies, she was geared up to take on the job of cleaning Enji. Dante had tried a couple of times, but declined nappy-duty forever when his efforts were once rewarded by a urine soaked shirt. Trish didn't mind that much. In her opinion, Dante would come around sooner or later and stop his constant whining. It was good that he had something other than devil hunting to fall back on for a change.

Dante was nowhere to be seen, and the shop reeked more than usual. It also seemed to have undergone some kind of redecoration. Trish eyed the padded walls for a curious moment. A jab of worry shot through her. Dante was usually waiting right inside the door for her, to shove Enji into her arms and make a break for it. Where was he?

Trish glided up the stairs to the bedroom. Worry churned into fear when she saw no one and heard nothing. The bedroom itself was a complete mess – a bucket of murky water stood to one side, a damp mop fallen over beside it, and toys and bedding were stuffed into a black garbage bag.

"Dante?" Trish called out, leaning on the railing outside the door and scanning the shop with feverish eyes. He didn't try to take Enji out to the park again, did he? Not in this heat. "_Enji!" _Trish cried out. If anyone would respond to her, it would be Enji. And he did.  
She heard his mumbled response from the bathroom. She strolled over, slid the door open, and stared in bewildered surprise.

Dante glanced up at her with narrowed, cool blue eyes that warned her to just shut up. He was livid. Beside him, inside the bathtub, a naked Enji was lying on his tummy. He let out a little chortle of pleasure every few moments. Trish looked from the shower rod Dante was aiming over the baby, the water beating down softly on the little back, to Dante's broody expression, to the room behind her, and back.

"What happened?" Trish finally asked when Dante turned off the water and pulled a wriggling Enji into a fluffy blue towel.

"He shits more than I do." Dante huffed in curt response.

"Okay." Trish said uncertainly. "Did you try to change him?"

"No." Dante said. "He did. And then he decided to paint the fucking walls with it, too."

Trish couldn't help it. She let out a giggle, and smiled when Dante glared up at her. "Well, you never know, he might be a Picasso in the making."

"He needs to find a different creative outlet." Dante grumbled, and looked down when Enji grabbed hold of his ear. "You little brat. Next time I'll shove your face in it and make you eat it all up."

Enji chuckled in response and smacked his little hands into Dante's cheeks, not so lightly, and planted a wet open mouth right on his nose. Trish watched them for a moment, and sighed.

"I'll take out the trash and air out the place." She said. She paused at Dante's quiet, frustrated grunt. "He really does love you, you know."

Dante blinked at her, and arched his eyebrows down at Enji. "He sure has a funny way of showing it."

**~...~**


	10. Sentiments

**~...~**

Dante swung Rebellion over his shoulder with careless ease, circling the enormous crab-like demon with deliberate, lazy steps. He considered the monstrosity; its position, its battered appearance, its size – but then size didn't matter when it had hellish wrath driving it. From what Dante could tell, this demon was seriously pissed off, and just as stupid. The blows he'd dealt it before were in target areas. It was weakening by the second.

Dante stalled it a few more moments for an easy kill. "Now is the time to crawl back under the rock you came from, or end up crab-fry. It's your choice."

"You will pay for your impudence, fool!" The demon gritted out, and launched itself with all dozen legs extended. It stopped short an arm's length from the calm and unflinching devil hunter. Beady crimson eyes blinked, stunned, and dropped out of its sockets to swoop down and stare at the enormous blade stuck right through its armoured chest.

"You..." The demon hissed. "...I know you... you smell of treachery... you are the son of..."

Dante pursed his lips and kicked the demon away, wrenching his sword out at the same time. "I've heard that line one time too many." Dante muttered, giving Rebellion a forceful swing through the air to shake the blood off the blade.  
He scanned his surroundings for any more demons, but there was nothing but the quiet lake and deserted fields. He turned and started back toward the lonely highway. The demon exploded into ash behind him a second later, the odd and somewhat disturbing 'pop' echoing briefly through the dark.

Dante inspected the damage he'd picked up during his fight once he was under the golden light of a street lamp. His coat looked like somebody had let a crazed kid with scissors lose on it. "Damn it."  
He mounted his bike and headed home, his thoughts dancing around the numbers winking in his head. Two million dollars will be staring back at him by tomorrow morning. He could do with that money. Pay off his pizza tab, shove a good sum of it in Lady's face and kick her the hell out of his shop when she showed up again, maybe even take his jukebox in to have professionals restore the vintage beauty. Who knows, maybe he'd even get a car.

Dante arrived at the Devil May Cry and sat on his bike for a moment to shrug off his ruined coat. He stared down at the torn red leather, and licked his lips in dismay. Reality check. He'd have to get this fixed first, or replaced. And he probably wouldn't pay off his tab, because he never seemed to get around to it when he did have the cash. As for paying his debt to Lady – not gonna happen. He'd be a downright idiot if he let her know he had a penny behind his name. She'd take it all. Damn woman.

Dante stepped into the store and closed the door quietly behind him. Kyrie was sitting on the soft furry carpet in front of the television and glanced up when she heard him come in. Nero was sprawled on a couch, arm slumped across his face, snoring lightly. Enji was lying on his stomach beside Kyrie, dressed in his motorbike-print pyjamas, trying to munch on a big yellow ball with his gums.

"Tough day?" Kyrie asked softly when Dante tossed the torn coat over the back of the other couch. She'd learnt, eventually, not to fuss when Dante got home all bloody and wounded. Not that it could be easy for her. From what Dante could tell, she was a very caring person, and it went against her instincts to sit back and do nothing when somebody was in discomfort. But Dante wasn't all that welcoming to people wanting to baby him.

Dante sank down on the couch and started to kick off his boots. "Nah, just a crabby one."

"Oh." Kyrie said. There was an awkward pause. Then she pulled Enji to his feet. "Look who's home, Enji."

The tiny toddler stood uncertainly when Kyrie faced him toward Dante. Then, with a brilliant smile that lit up his chubby little face, he extended his arms toward the devil hunter with a squeal. Enji waddled over to him, with the precariousness of one who'd had one too many drinks .

"When did he start walking?" Dante asked, glancing from the unsteady toddler to Kyrie's beaming face.

"Today." Kyrie said with a confused frown.

"Oh." Dante said, and scratched the back of his head when Enji reached him safely.  
He would admit that Enji's development had flown over his head these past few months, if it didn't mean that he'd provoke Kyrie into one of her long boring lectures about cherishing every moment. Dante had been concentrating more on keeping the immediate region demon-free than paying attention to the toddler's growth – it was beyond fucking funny just how many demons wanted the kid dead. He ruffled the blonde head guiltily. "First crawling, now walking? Next step up, you'll be kicking ass with me."

"Dante." Kyrie chided sharply. "We've talked about your choice of words around Enji."

"We have?" Dante asked, and blinked irately when Kyrie opened her mouth to fire off on him. "Hey, look. My house, my rules," Dante said, jerking a thumb at himself. "I'm king here. Deal with it, babe."

Kyrie closed her mouth and narrowed her gaze at him. "I won't let you corrupt his vocabulary."

"There's nothing wrong with the way I talk," Dante huffed, slouching back into the couch, and added a very heart-felt, "Damn it!"

"I think it's time we go." Nero mumbled from the other couch. He was watching them with sleep encrusted eyes, and from his expression it was clear he didn't like the way Dante contested Kyrie.

"You're right." Kyrie said flatly, and wrapped Enji into a warm, motherly hug. "You be a good boy, Enji. We'll see you tomorrow for your special day."

Enji clung to Kyrie with a wail of protest when she tried to straighten to her feet. Nero tiredly got up from the couch, and gave Enji a look that very simply portrayed that he'd had more than his fair share of dealing with the toddler's tiring demands all day.

"You want to come home with us, Enji?" Nero asked in a harsh tone of voice that hung between impatience and anger. "Because we won't bring you back to Dante if you do."

Enji's eyes turned into blue saucers, and then he was struggling in Kyrie's arms, reaching for Dante frantically. Kyrie planted a kiss against his cheek before carefully putting him down on the floor beside the couch.

"Call if you need anything." Kyrie said emotionlessly to Dante.

"Whatever." Dante muttered, flipping through the channels on TV. He paused to watch Kyrie march out of the store, and sent a rumpled look at Nero. "You still here?"

"Does the word chivalry mean anything to you?" Nero snarled back.

"Don't start with me, kid. I've had a long day." Dante said.

"_You've_ had a long day?" Nero exploded, and Dante flinched, snatching Enji up into his arms when Nero's devil bringer brimmed sharply and Yamato appeared in his grasp. Nero raised the katana an inch, gave Enji's innocent stare one look, and stepped away.

"You've had a long day." Nero repeated, shaking his head and strolling toward the door. "Guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about..." The door slammed shut behind him, cutting off the rest of his grumbling.

"Ass-wipe." Dante breathed, putting Enji back down on the carpet before stretching out on the couch. He turned his attention back to the TV and suppressed a yawn. He ought to go get cleaned up, he reeked of demon gore, but he couldn't be bothered right then. Enji pulled himself to his feet beside him, and clapped his hands together clumsily.

"Ashwi!" Enji squealed.

"That's nice, kid." Dante said absent-mindedly. He blinked. Looked at Enji. "What did you say?"

"Ashwide!" Enji tried again, and chortled at Dante's alarmed expression.

"Enji, what the hell?" Dante said, casting a cautious glance at the door. "Kyrie is going to kill you."

"Killu." Enji repeated.

"Fuck," Dante sat up and ran a tired hand down his face. "It's way past your bedtime, kiddo. Let's get you down."

**~...~**

He knew what time it was by instinct when he woke up the next morning. His internal clock was set to kick him out of dreamland at roughly the same time every day, because he could no longer make use of an actual alarm clock. These few small hours of the morning was the only time he had to himself anymore. Cold shower to wake himself up, scavenge the fridge for breakfast, give his arsenal a good one over – his preparation for the day before Trish showed up and Enji finally got up.

It all seemed fairly simple and easy, but it wasn't. Dante stirred underneath the covers, and started to lift himself off the bed with his arms. He got halfway before dropping tiredly back down. He pinched his eyes closed and let out a grumpy moan into the downy softness of his pillow. There was a soft sound beside him. Dante had Coyote-A loaded and aimed in the general direction of the sound before he mustered the energy to lift his head and look at the source.

Trish was hovering over him with her hands placed on her slim hips. He should have known it was her – nobody could sneak up on him and catch him off guard like she could. Dante sent a weary glance at the cup on the bedside table, the strong aroma of caffeine filling the room, and lowered his gun before scowling up at Trish.

"What do you want?"

The look on Trish's face told him that he was in seriously deep shit. He wrecked his mind to try think what he could have done to piss her off this time. He scrambled out of bed, aiming the gun at her again.

"Please tell me you're joking." Trish hissed back at him angrily.

"What?" Dante growled, confused.

"Get ready and be downstairs in five minutes or I'll come back up here and fetch you." Trish said quietly, and sent a glance at Enji's cot before glaring at Dante. "And you do not want me to come fetch you."

Dante watched her glide from his room, and pulled on his usual attire. He'd have to skip his shower this morning. Damn it. He downed the coffee, ignoring the drops he messed on his sheets. He started downstairs, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and his pace slowed halfway down when he saw the occupants of his store.

Nina and Trish were leaning over a book on his desk, and Patty was killing his store with red and blue balloons. Dante trailed over to his desk and sank down in his chair. He stared at the book they were poring over. Glanced at the balloons, and spotted the group of wrapped presents carefully placed on the pool table.

"What do you think, Dante?" Nina asked, tapping her finger on the photos in the book. "Power Rangers or Biker Mice from Mars for Enji's cake?"

"Uh..." Dante said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Power Rangers, I guess."

"Okay. I'll head down to the baker." Nina said, snatching the book up and headed for the door.

Trish turned to Dante with a disbelieving look. "You forgot, didn't you?"

"Enji's birthday?" Dante shrugged and leaned back in the chair, daunted. "Yeah."

Trish shook her head at him and walked away to help Patty decorate the place. Dante watched them work together, his gaze straying to Trish a lot, watching her smile and put effort into what she was doing. It brought back painfully sweet memories of times so far back in his past that he sometimes questioned whether they were real or not.

Dante jolted out of his chair and strolled from the store. It was a beautiful, clear morning with the promise of an equally beautiful day ahead. He caught up with Nina down the street.

"Could you make it a chocolate cake?" Dante asked, falling in stride beside her.

Nina looked up at him in surprise, and smiled warmly. "Sure."

Dante made a curt nod at her response, and changed his course. He felt very weird on his walk to the diner. He slipped into his chosen booth, and gazed out the window at the bright sky.

"Hiya, Dante," a familiar, cheerful voice made him turn. Cindy chomped down on her gum, and flashed him a broad smile. The pink striped uniform she wore looked smaller – she'd slimmed down. "The usual?"

"Yeah." Dante said.

"Having a bad day?" Cindy asked, arching her eyebrows at him, her smile dimming slightly.

"Every day is the same." Dante said, and waved her away. "Make it a jumbo sundae."

"One jumbo sundae, with extra strawberries, coming right up," Cindy said, and rolled away.

Dante watched her retreating for a second, glanced out the window at the sunny morning, and stared down at the table in front of him. Talk about fucking creepy. He suppressed the foreboding sensations shifting inside of him. It was just coincidence. There were probably millions of people celebrating their birthdays on this day.

His sundae arrived, and Dante dug his spoon into the white mound of ice cream. He lifted the heap, observed it for an unnerved moment. He glanced out the window again. It was good weather – it was different to all the years before when he'd come in here, drenched from a cold rain on this very day. It had to be a good omen of some kind. Maybe Enji was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Still, it was undeniably creepy. Dante sighed.

"Happy birthday, brother," Dante mumbled, and shoved the spoon into his mouth. His mind dwindled on Vergil for a short while before his thoughts took a different course. What was he going to get for Enji? What could you get for a one year old that they would appreciate and not destroy? He had two million dollars in the bank, so money was not an issue.

He was still worrying over the matter on his way back home when his eye happened to catch on a large array of toys in the display window of a kid's store. Dante paused, eyed the store for a second, and went inside. He reappeared a long while later with two enormous bags bulging with toys, and struggled his way back to Devil May Cry.

He didn't realize how long he'd been out until he stepped into his store to find that everybody was already there. Everybody – even that cocky teleporting punk was there. Dante glanced from the party food spread out on his desk, to the single slice of cake left, to the dirty dishes Trish was collecting. His gaze fixed on the torn wrapping paper Kyrie and Patty were shoving into a garbage bag, and the new toys scattered on the floor. The faintly guilty looks from Patty and Kyrie fuelled the sudden coldness in his gut.

What the hell did he care? He didn't believe in sentimental shit anyway. Dante dropped the bags on the already unwrapped presents, sending toys rolling across the floor noisily, and made his way to the corner bar without a word.

"Morrison already left, and I'm on my way out, too. Where have you been?" Lady broke the uncomfortable silence.

Dante glanced at the time. A good hour past noon. Was he at the diner that long? He grabbed a beer and popped it open with his thumb, turning to look at the awkward faces, most of whom avoided looking at him at all. Except for Lady, and the punk kid. Dante took a gulp of his beer, and smacked his lips together.

"Where's Enji?" He responded coldly.

"It's his nap time." Kyrie said.

"Looks like it was some party." Dante said when silence fell once more. "Pity I missed it."

"Well, we couldn't wait for you all day, you inconsiderate prick." Lady huffed, climbing to her feet. "Great party, guys." She added maliciously before the front door slammed shut behind her.

"Bitch." Dante breathed and took a long sip of beer.

"We took photos and video of it for you." Patty said timidly.

"Thanks," Dante said sarcastically, lifting the bottle in a mocking toast. "That's thoughtful of you."

"Dante..." Trish started with a sigh.

"Don't try to justify what you did." Dante cut her off, and his eyes were unusually frosty. "I risk my life for that kid every single fucking day, and now I don't even get to celebrate surviving the past three hundred and sixty odd days?"

"Don't be so melodramatic..." Trish said.

"To hell with you all." Dante snapped, slamming the bottle down on the counter behind him. He did it too hard – glass shattered and alcohol spilled onto the floor and over his boots. "Shit!"

"Are you okay?" Kyrie got to her feet.

Dante glanced from her alarmed expression to his cut and profusely bleeding hand. He stared at the blood for a long moment. "Get out. All of you. Right now."

"I'll get Enji," Nero said, exchanging looks with Kyrie before turning toward the stairs. He barely took a step before Dante shot across the room and blocked his way.

"You're not taking Enji with you." Dante said.

"I think it's best if we do." Kyrie spoke up behind Nero. "We can't leave him alone with you when you're like this."

Dante stared hard at her until Kyrie physically cringed. He shifted his eyes and met Nero's gaze straight on. "If you want to get to the kid, you'll have to go through me first."

Nero backed away from him quickly, surprised. "C'mon, Kyrie."

"But Nero..."

"Kyrie, come _on_," Nero said, grabbing her arm and steering her toward the door.

Trish watched them leave, and turned to Dante, stumped. "I think they have a point, Dante. Enji isn't going to help you cool your temper down."

"Enji is sleeping." Dante bit back. "Get out!"

Trish blinked in surprise, and shrugged. "Okay, don't say we didn't offer to give you some breathing space." She turned and glided from the store with swaying hips and a confidence that at that moment worked on Dante's nerves.

He sent a glance at Nina and Patty, both of whom were busying themselves by clearing up the mess. The only other occupant in the store was the youthful man, who had been quiet the whole time. There was a solemn shadow across his face, and he met Dante's gaze evenly without fear or judgement.

"You too, asshole." Dante said. He dragged himself upstairs to the bathroom and rinsed the blood from his healing hand. He stepped back into the bedroom and sauntered over to the cot. Enji was in nothing but his nappy, and from the soft snoring sounds it was clear he'd had a blast. Well, that was all that counted at the end of the day, wasn't it?

Dante pursed his lips angrily. He wasn't _that_ sentimental, and when he was, it was only on this specific day every year, and only for the length it took to devour a sundae. So what the hell was wrong with him? He froze when he heard a sigh behind him. He turned slowly to give the young man sitting on his bed a sidelong glance.

The furious words screaming through his head froze in his throat when the boy offered him a large flat box. Dante frowned hard from the glossy white square to the guy's sincere gaze.

"For you." The young man said coaxingly. "To congratulate you on a job well done."

Dante didn't take the box from him, and the boy put it down on the bed beside him instead. "That means shit to me."

"Maybe," the youth said guiltily. "But you did far better than I did once."

"So you gonna tell me when this job is done or what?" Dante said coldly.

"You'll know when it's done. Not that it will make any difference." The young man said with a brief smile. He got up and headed for the door, but Dante beat him to it.

He pushed the door closed with his hand, and stood guard against it with a ferocious look on his face. "Where is she?"

The youth stared back at Dante, dumb-founded. "I can't tell you."

"Okay, then tell me this; why is Eva alive?" Dante said quietly.

For a long time they stared at one another in tense silence, as though time itself had frozen around them.

"I'll let you know when I know." The young man said, his voice so soft that it was like a fleeting breath of wind before it was gone. And, like somebody had flicked a light switch, the boy himself disappeared. Dante found himself staring at thin air.

His shoulders slumped in defeat, and he surveyed the box on the bed curiously. Dante wandered over to it and sat down, picking it onto his lap. He hesitated for a long moment, and finally carefully took the lid off. Folded red leather. Dante got up and pulled it from the box, shaking it out. It was a trench coat – an exact replica of one he'd worn as a kid. His eye caught on the black scribble on the inside of the box lid. Two little words, but it made the world around him fall into a riptide of emotion and brought him to his knees.

_Love,  
Mom._

**~...~**


	11. Eva

_**Some time down the road...less the constant f-bombs**_

**~...~**

When Enji hit age three, Dante was getting the hang of the whole single dad thing. From the trials of potty training, to the obscure randomness of toddlerhood – turning away for a second to find a rubber ducky dunked into his sundae, as one of many examples – Dante had survived it all. Being a father had its perks.

Being a single father had even more.  
The treatment he received was not something Dante expected. From having parking bays – a nice, really big parking space – allocated to people just like him, to sometimes being urged to cut the line in the supermarket to get a cranky Enji out of there sooner. But that wasn't even half of it.  
No, the Big Up about being a single dad, was the women.

It didn't matter what age they were, from teenagers to hot beautiful women to grannies, the female population suddenly looked at Dante in a way that contrasted immensely with what he was accustomed to. Who'd have thought a guy with a little kid could unknowingly squirm into the hearts of many fine ladies? Needless to say, Dante ventured out with Enji a lot more. The list of numbers he'd gotten from women were heaping up in his desk drawers. Not that he ever asked for it – they willingly gave it to him. Though, between work and caring for Enji, Dante barely had enough stamina left in him to entertain the idea of calling any of them.

All of which, due to his lucky streak, was about to change.

Dante pulled up outside a mediocre single floor brick house in his gleaming red AC Cobra, oblivious to the curious glances from parents herding their children out of the parking lot. He scanned the yard, littered with jungle-gyms and swings and sandpits, and glanced over at the excited boy, dressed in denim overalls, strapped in the seat beside him.

"Is that it?" Enji asked, staring.

"That's it. Ready for your big day?" Dante asked with a grin.

"Hell yeah!"

"Enji. Don't say hell." Dante said.

"Why not?" Enji blanched.

"Because Kyrie doesn't like it."

"But..." Enji started.

"And Trish doesn't like it either." Dante added. This shut the kid up.

Enji was a clever little rascal – smarter than any other three year old out there, Dante was pretty damn sure. He was taller than the average kid his age, too, and in Dante's opinion he was more advanced in certain areas due to their rough play at home. His hand-eye coordination was perfect, his reflexes top notch, and his mind sharp. For a three year old.

"Now you remember what I told you?" Dante said seriously.

"Yeah, Dad." Enji said, unbuckling his seatbelt and snatching his blue rucksack up from the floor. "I'll see ya!"

"Slow down there, speedy." Dante grabbed the boy by the wrist when he tried to fling open the door. "I'm coming in with you."

"Why?"

"It's your first day."

"So?"

"So Kyrie said I had to hang around for a bit to see if you settle in or not."

Enji sat back in the bronze leather seat and stared at his blue Nike sneakers for a moment. He glanced at Dante from the corner of his eye. "She's a worry-wart."

"You don't want me to go in with you at all?" Dante asked, not at all surprised. Enji preferred to do things alone most of the time. He liked it that way. Dante could get that – he was the same. Independent. The difference was that Enji was too little to be as independent as he wanted.

"No. I'll be okay. I'll just go say hi to one of the grownups." Enji said, reaching for the door and swinging it open. He jumped out and turned to look at Dante expectantly.

"Don't talk to strangers." Dante said, shaking a warning finger at him. "And no cursing. And if you see anything out of the ordinary, tell one of the teachers, and have them call me."

"Okay." Enji said, and shut the door.

Dante watched the kid skip into the yard and disappear into the house. He shook his head with a content sigh. Enji wasn't your every day average kid – Dante didn't see any of the other little kids eager to get away from their parents. He lingered in the car for a moment longer before climbing out and slipping into the house himself. Trish had told him Enji would put up a fuss with Dante trying to baby him, and instead of embarrassing Enji by tagging along, she suggested Dante make himself invisible to the boy.

Which would have been easy, Dante presumed, if he hadn't been so good looking. The moment he stepped into the large room crowded with kids and toys and tables, two older women ambushed him with curiosity in their eyes and wrinkled cheeks. They introduced themselves as teachers to him, but their names flew over his head when he tried to pull free of their welcoming hands. Enji had already settled himself down with a group of kids, and from what Dante could tell, he was fitting right in.

"Which one is yours then? The tall blonde one?" One of the teachers asked with a kind smile.

"Yeah." Dante said. "I gotta run, ladies. You'll keep an eye on my boy, won't you?"

"Oh, don't worry. We'll take good care of him."

Dante dazzled them with his most charming smile – the one that he reserved only for extreme cases such as these, when he really wanted to get out of an awkward situation fast – and disappeared out the front door without delay. He'd staked out the kindergarten the day before, familiarized himself with every corner of the house, and every inch of the evergreen grassy yard. Not that there had been any demon attacks on Enji for the past two years, but Dante wanted to be on guard regardless.

He found himself lingering in the parking lot longer than should be sensible, staring at the kindergarten. His senses picked up on no demon entities in close proximity. It was all clear. He could get in the car and drive off, and know that Enji was in good hands.

Dante slowly got into the car. Still, he didn't turn on the engine. Something was keeping him here. There had to be a reason, other than Enji, why he was stalling. The pale sky was marred by placid clouds, the winter sun glowing like a blinding orb and stroking the earth with gentle rays. There were turtledoves crooning in a withered old oak tree in front of the blue and yellow painted gates.

Dante expected the slippery youth, The Wimp, as he'd come to call the unnamed guy, to appear any moment. He liked to pitch up on big occasions like these, as though he didn't want to miss out on Enji's firsts. The last time Dante had seen him was on Enji's second birthday.

He still couldn't quite get his head around the guy. For Enji's second birthday, Dante had bought him a mini-quad bike. The Wimp had shown up with a remote controlled car for Enji – and a video tape for Dante. Which, of course, he didn't get to watch until Nina and Patty invited him over for dinner at their place, since Dante didn't own a VCR. There wasn't that much on the tape – most of the film was scarred and the casing a bit battered, as though it had gone through a war of sorts. It contained about five minutes of clear film.

Five minutes that encompassed a memory Dante could only barely recall. Twin blonde boys, one dressed in white, the other in green, making turns to dive off a sofa into a pool of pillows, laughing their little heads off. Him and Vergil at the tender age of two, having normal, harmless, innocent fun. The fact that Enji was the spitting image of the boys on that film confirmed what Dante suspected – Enji had to be his brother.

He'd been adamant to trap The Wimp on Enji's third birthday, knowing he was going to pitch up, and force him to lead him to Eva. Unfortunately, The Wimp had somehow caught whiff of Dante's intentions and didn't show his face.

He did, however, leave presents. A full baseball set for Enji, and keys for Dante with a note that read '_she's at the bar'_. The word 'she' had driven Dante to mindlessly race through the streets to the local bar. When he got there, he realized just how naive he'd been. The 'she' referred to wasn't what he'd been hoping. Not that Dante could lie and say he didn't appreciate the beautiful little sports car now in his name, but he'd been disgruntled at the deceiving wordplay and indulged in several beers before taking his new toy for a ride.

Dante was determined to yet catch hold of the guy, but it didn't seem he was going to see him today. His senses were keenly spread out, waiting to pick up on the slightest twitch of demonic presence, but there was nothing but the sound of traffic far down the road. Dante glanced up when the sound of children singing drifted from the kindergarten, and let out a despondent sigh.

He reached forward and took hold of the key, and paused for another drawn out moment. The wind ruffled through his hair lightly, cool against his face. His lips pressed in contempt. Hope. That was what was keeping him here. Cruel, ruthless hope anchored him.

Hope to catch that damn asshole and crush his throat until he caved in and told him where Eva was.

Quiet footsteps sounded across the tar behind him at a calm pace. Dante stiffened when there was a momentary pause, and then a figure in rosy pink moved right past his door. His gaze darted up to watch the retreating back of a blonde woman slip through the gates and follow the footpath up to the front door. He relaxed. Just a human, nothing to worry about.

With a feeling of defeat, Dante turned the key. The engine purred to life beneath him, and he flipped through his CD collection until he found the band he was looking for. He popped the disc in, shifted the automatic into reverse, and started to pull out of the parking space when loud music boomed through the speakers. Shifting the gear into drive, he sent one more glimpse at the kindergarten, and felt every fibre of his body disintegrate into jelly.

The woman in pink hadn't gone into the house. She stood on tiptoe outside the window, and had very suspiciously been peeking inside. Now, her head was turned, and she was staring back at him with a startled and pale expression of somebody who'd been caught red-handed. She slowly lowered herself back down onto her heels, and turned nervously toward him.

They stared at one another through the colourful gates, both of them trapped under the other's gaze like deer caught in headlights. The woman looked younger than he recalled, younger than the one he had enshrined with gold on his desk. But it was her – if the golden hair and familiar features didn't give away her identity, the horrified expression on her face sure as hell did.

She started toward him slowly, lowering her head. Dante could hear his heart thudding over the sound of the music blasting through the car. Doof...doof-doof...doof-doof-doof...  
As she drew closer, he could see her fidgeting with her hands nervously. Her blue eyes avoided looking right at him. His hand shot out and the music snapped off.  
...doofdoofdoofdoof...  
He opened the door when she strolled past him, putting a fair distance between herself and the car. The word 'wait' was on the tip of his tongue, but it never got out. She spun around at the sound of the car door opening, and there was pure terror in her eyes. The look itself froze him to the spot.

"Don't follow me." She pleaded. She promptly continued on her way, and Dante sat staring after her.

A very large part of him wanted to chase after her, but her words held him put. He felt as helpless as he had when he was a kid. Unable to disobey her command. _No matter what happens, Dante, you mustn't come out._ This was that same feeling, that inexplicable compulsion he had to obey, even though his soul was screaming complete opposition. It was frustrating, and it tore at him. She was _right there_. Walking. Breathing. Alive. He could grab her, hold onto her and never let her go, and she wouldn't be able to fight him off. He could force her to come home with him. He could keep her, protect her, keep her safe. He could.

Dante closed the car door and turned back in the seat. He saw her pause in the reflection of his rear view mirror, saw her cast a quick, longing glance at him, before disappearing around the tall hedge growing along the sidewalk. He stared at the empty space there. He dropped his head against the steering wheel and closed his eyes, waiting for the burning in his chest and the vertigo in his stomach to fade away.

He kept his eye out for her on the drive back to Devil May Cry, but she was gone. Dante dragged himself into the store, eyes downcast as he marched over to his desk and sank down in his chair. Trish was paging through his collection of demon Wikipedia, and sent him a peculiar look.

"Hi." She said, in a manner to announce her presence to him.

Dante steadily gazed at the photo on his desk. His eyes flitted to Trish quickly before dropping to his hands clenched on his lap.

"What's the matter?" Trish asked playfully, wandering over to him. "First day jitters? Missing Enji already?"

Dante winced. Everything – and everyone – had fled his mind when Eva showed up. He shook his head, and shrugged vaguely. His voice wouldn't come at his command. The lump in his throat grew into tears, and he pressed a hand to his face in raw emotion.

"Dante, what happened?" Trish asked, alarmed at his reaction. She wrenched his hands away from his face to look him in the eye. "_Dante!"_

"Nothing." Dante blinked the tears from his eyes furiously and leaned back in his chair, reining in his composure. "It's nothing. Enji's fine. I'm fine. We're all fine."

"That is clearly not the case," Trish said, gripping his hands harder in her own. "Tell me what's wrong."

Dante looked away stubbornly and wrenched himself free of her. "Where would you like me to start? I'm raising a kid that's not mine, business is slow, and my pizza tab is currently higher than God," Dante said, motioning with his hands. The look of concern on Trish's face gave way to impatience, and he knew he was off the hook.

"Fine, if you don't want to talk about it, forget it," Trish said in a condescending tone, straightening up and resuming her previous position on the couch. "Just please don't start lamenting again, or I'll have to hurt you."


	12. Imaginary

**~...~**

The irony of the situation. Dante levelled his twins on the greasy, wart coated demons, and gunshots rang through the air. The monstrosities exploded like balloons filled with guts, and then there was perfect silence in the small bathroom. Brown gore stained the palm tree printed shower curtain and oozed down the blue tiled walls.

Dante twirled his guns and slipped them back in their holsters, surveying the mess around him. It was an easy mission, and it took him less than a minute to solve the problem. His third job for the day. If he had the heart, he would tell his client to cut down on the great sum of money they'd paid him to do this, but as it were, the pay compensated for having to drive all the way out here for such a little task in the first place.

But, shit, the irony. Dante eyed the toilet for a second, and his lips twitched slightly. Maybe he was being too soft on Enji. It had taken him a long time to convince the boy the potty monster didn't exist – a fear most children experienced irrationally. Because Enji had never come face to face with a demon, not since his first birthday, and therefore had no proof to support or encourage his fears. Now Dante was starting to doubt whether raising Enji to be ignorant to the very real threats out there was such a bright idea. Probably not.

"He doesn't have to know," Dante muttered and strolled from the empty house. He was right. Enji didn't need to grow up surrounded by danger. He could have a normal life. So what if Trish wasn't his mother. So what if Dante wasn't his father. At least Enji had _somebody_ he could call Dad, and somebody he could look to as a mother figure – and he had a few of those.

"Is it over?" the aristocratic family huddled outside in their rich thick coats looked at him hopefully when he brushed past them to his car.

Dante answered with a salute and a faint smirk, and pulled out of their driveway with burning rubber. It was a half hour drive back into the city. By the time he got back to Devil May Cry, the sky was dunked in midnight hues with a silver crescent moon suspended in its midst. He stepped into the store quietly and trailed over to the corner bar. He peeled off his coat and dropped it over the counter, and fished through his collection of wines and ales for his bottle of whiskey.

"Enji's sorted out."

Dante jolted upright, nearly knocking the bottles off the shelf, and turned to flash an irritated look at Trish behind him. "Thanks."

"He had a tough day." Trish added, and patted him on the shoulder when he sent her a puzzled look. "I'll take him in to kindy tomorrow and see what's going on."

Dante mixed his drink, and spoke when Trish opened the door to step outside. "Good night."

"G'night." Trish said, offering him a vague smile before disappearing into the night.

Dante made himself comfortable on one of the bar stools, quietly scanning the store spread out in front of him. He was halfway through his second glass, thoughts wrapped in consternation as he tried to decide whether he was doing Enji a favour or not by hiding the scary reality of demons from him, when a clear click signalled the upstairs door opening.

He glimpsed the time on the clock behind him. Quarter past midnight. Dante was on his feet in a second, Coyote-A in one hand and his glass of whiskey in the other as he started toward the stairs. He stopped suddenly, one foot on the bottom step, when he focused on a dazed Enji standing at the top of the staircase.

"What are you doing up?" Dante asked, relaxing. He moved to hide the gun behind his back, but Enji's large blue eyes had already spotted it.

The little boy responded with a shaky breath, and reluctantly tore his gaze from Dante to stare at the open bedroom door. His chest heaved hard, once, and his shoulders shook.

"Enji?" Dante said edgily, ascending the stairs two at a time. He crouched down to the child's height, and turned his head firmly to look him in the eye. Enji's cheeks were wet, and more tears hung heavy on his lids. When Dante put down his glass and took Enji's small hand in his, the skin was icy cold and damp. "What is it, Enji?" Dante asked quietly.

Enji stared back at him for a long time. His breathing was ragged, every inch of his body rigid. Sweat dribbled from his temples. His voice was barely audible when he finally spoke, scarcely able to form the syllables properly. "Monster...under the bed."

Dante pulled the child down on the floor, and Enji sat staring back at him, completely terrified. "Stay here, alright? No matter what, don't move from this spot." Dante said firmly. Enji stared back at him.

Dante picked up his glass and emptied the contents down his throat on his way in to the bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind him, eyes scanning the dark room. "Alright, you fuck, where are you?"

Silence. He dropped to the floor and crawled underneath the bed. Nothing. He opened the cupboard. Nothing. He pulled the window open and scanned the street below. Nothing. Dante closed the window and turned back to the empty room, genuinely confused. What the hell?  
He marched out the room and peered over the railing at the quiet store below. Nothing. Dante looked at Enji, curled into a ball against the wall.

"Enji, where is it?" Dante asked.

"Under the bed." Enji said, looking up at him with round eyes.

"There's nothing in the room." Dante said gently.

"There's a monster under the bed!" Enji said loudly, and sobbed into his arms.

Dante let out a long sigh, and went to kneel down in front of the boy. "I think you had a nightmare, Enji. There's nothing in the room. I checked everywhere."

"But I'm not lying!"

"I didn't say you are," Dante frowned, and sat, stumped, when Enji rushed past him back into the room. Light flooded out into the hallway.

Dante found Enji flat on the floor, staring under the bed. He got down beside him. There was nothing but old socks and empty bullets. "See? Nothing." Dante said. "It was just a nightmare."

Enji didn't budge until Dante hauled the child to his feet. "Look, I'll come to bed. I'll keep you safe from this imaginary monster, okay?"

"It's not imaginary!" Enji shouted back at him. "I saw it!"

Enji ran from the room and Dante heard him bound downstairs. He let out an annoyed grunt. That did it. It would be stupid to let Enji know demons – monsters – were real. The kid would freak out even more than he already was. Dante took a hot shower to relax his tense muscles, and by the time he was done and ready for bed, he found Enji passed out on the couch downstairs.

First day jitters. That had to be it. Nerves and all, it must have caught up to Enji tonight in his sleep.

**  
~...~**

The time that followed after that was tough on both of them.  
Tough on Dante, because he had to learn to shut his trap when Enji had play-dates. Other parents weren't welcoming with his foul language around their children, and it put them off from bringing their kids over to Devil May Cry. The only parent who persevered, despite Dante's crude personality traits, was a shy, pretty widow who brought her little girl Emily over quite often.

And it was tough times on Enji, because he got taunted at kindergarten by the other kids. It made him clingy on Emily, being his only friend, and this didn't sit well with Dante. There was nothing he could do about it but snap at the teachers for not stepping up for his boy, and swearing at the other parents for having little fucks that would one day eat their damn words. Because they would, if Dante had anything to do with it.

It was doubly tough at night. Enji's nightmares got worse until finally neither of them could get a proper night's sleep. By the time Enji started going to Big School, Dante made the decision to invest in property on the outskirts of the city in an average, and relatively safe, suburb. It was around this time that Enji stopped waking up screaming every two to three hours at night, and Dante was able to actually sleep through again.

Big School, however, held a whole new dilemma in itself. Dante didn't know Enji was getting bullied until a frantic teacher called him into school when Enji was halfway through his third grade year.

"There's been an accident. We've called an ambulance, but you need to get here right now," was all the panicked woman got out over the phone. Dante had shown up at the school the same time the ambulance did.

He only knew where to find Enji because there was a crowd of children and teachers surrounding him. People were shouting, some kids were crying. Complete and total chaos. Dante shoved a path through the crowd until he came face to face with eight year old Enji lying flat on his stomach, arms sprawled awkwardly on his sides. His head was turned to the side, and one of the teachers was speaking to him in low, urgent tones.

"...need to stay with me, okay? Don't close your eyes, help will be here soon, just stay awake..."

"What happened?" Dante asked, dropping to his knees beside Enji. There was no blood anywhere, no signs of any kind of struggle. He reached out, but the teacher, surprisingly, batted his hands away.

"Don't touch him until the paramedics get here. He fell." The teacher said in a voice verging on hysteria.

"He... he fell?" Dante repeated, and glanced around, bewildered. "He _fell_? From where?"

The teacher stared at Dante as if he was the biggest idiot to walk the earth. "From the top floor."

Dante glanced up at the four story building, gauging the distance. His eyes narrowed. The walls bordering the open school hallways were too high for anyone to simply trip and fall over.

"Dad... it hurts..." Enji choked out, and Dante looked down at him.

"It's okay, Enji." Dante said, slowly. He looked across at the teacher. "Who said he fell?"

"His friends. Uh... Peter and Mark and the boys..." The teacher gestured briefly, and Dante's eyes nailed on the four kids staring with wide eyes. They shifted under his piercing gaze. Guilt and fear stroked across their faces. Dante's stare turned into a deadly glare.

"C'mon," Dante said gently, turning his attention back to Enji. He turned him over onto his back carefully, to the teacher's alarm. "Let's get you home."

"You can't... you mustn't move him, you might cause even more damage..." The woman rambled.

Dante silenced her with a steady look. He grabbed Enji's hand and pulled him into a sitting position. "You good to get up?"

"Just gimme a minute, Dad." Enji said, wincing in pain, pressing his hand to his chest. He'd broken a few ribs then. Dante waited patiently, and moved aside when the paramedics descended on the boy. Expectedly, they didn't find that much damage on Enji at all. Winded, with a headache, but that was the jest of his injuries.

"We'd like to bring him in to hospital for observation," one of the lead paramedics said with a peculiar look in his eye.

Dante knew what he was thinking. A kid, who happened to be related to a half-breed, falling from that height, hitting the ground face first, coming off without a scratch. _Observation my ass_, Dante thought. They were likely to experiment on Enji like some lab rat. Humans and their damn curiosity of the supernatural.

"Yeah, and I'd like to retire from my career as a killer. But let's face it, that's not going to happen," Dante muttered to the paramedic, who cast a daunted look up at him. Dante gave him a tight smile. "Ready, Enji?"

"Yeah," Enji mumbled. Dante pulled him to his feet, noting his flushed face and hunched shoulders. Enji kept his head down and his eyes on the ground as Dante led him through the gaping crowd of spectators. Once they were in the car, Dante finally turned to him.

"You going to tell me what really happened?"

Enji shrugged. Picked at a thread in his school blazer. "Does it matter?"

"I wouldn't be asking if it didn't." Dante said.

There was a moment of absolute silence, then, "They pushed me off the roof."

"Why?" Dante asked.

"Because they're assholes."

"Thought so." Dante said. "How long has this been going on?"

"Who cares?" Enji shrugged again. "I don't want to dump my load on you. You've got enough shit going on as it is."

"And how would you know what shit I've got going on?" Dante asked, arching his eyebrow in surprise.

"C'mon, Dad. You're out nearly all day, you get in late with your coat always pulverized and you reek like a junk yard. And you sleep all the time when you're home. I know you're not doing mundane jobs." Enji trailed off, and ran his hands through his hair.

"What I do doesn't matter. You take priority, Enji. Have those boys been picking on you?"

"Yeah. So what of it?" Enji said, avoiding Dante's gaze. "It's nothing new."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't have any friends, Dad."

"What about Emily?"

"Except for Emily." Enji snapped. "Kids don't like me because I'm different."

"Tch." Dante said, shifting uncomfortably.

Enji gave him a withering look. "They say my mom abandoned me with a reject because she couldn't bear to be seen with a..."

"Stop right there." Dante cut him off. "Who the hell called me a reject?"

"Everybody." Enji said slowly. "Come on, Dad. We don't exactly fit into society. At least, I don't."

"And then you wonder why I hate people." Dante said. "Your mom didn't abandon you, Enji. She left you with me because I can take better care of you."

"Whatever, man." Enji grumbled.

"I can _protect_ you, Enji. Nobody else can." Dante said.

"No. Nobody can protect me, Dad. You didn't keep those kids from pushing me off the roof. You didn't stop them from cornering me after school every week and beating the hell out of me. So, exactly how the fuck are you protecting me?" Enji snapped.

They stared at each other. Dante was the one to finally look away. He started the car, and they drove off in awkward, tension ridden silence. They didn't look at each other, and when Dante changed course from home toward the store instead, Enji said nothing.

Dante parked outside the Devil May Cry, and gave Enji a long, measuring look. "You're right, Enji," he admitted, winning a confused glance from the boy. "I can't protect you all the time."

He got out, slammed the door, and headed into the store. Dante was unlocking the top cabinet of the bar when Enji came sauntering inside. He grabbed a drink for himself, and handed an energy soda to Enji.

"What are you doing?" Enji asked when Dante pulled him out of his blazer.

"I'm going to teach you how to defend yourself." Dante said.

"Seriously, Dad." Enji edged away from Dante impatiently. "I've got to cram for a geometry quiz tomorrow..."

"And acing in geometry is going to save you from getting your ass kicked again?"

"No... look, I appreciate the gesture to get taught by my old Pop how to 'defend' myself, but I'll get expelled from school if I hit anyone." Enji said.

Dante shifted into a fighting position at Enji's demeaning tone of voice. "I'm not going to teach you to start a fight. I'm going to show you how to end one."

Enji stared at Dante, clearly embarrassed. "You look like an idiot. If I wanted to learn karate, I'd go for actual classes from a sensei."

"You haven't seen your old man in action, kid." Dante smirked. "Now suck it up. I'm training you. If you're good enough, I might even let you in on the family business."

Enji's self-conscious shield lowered and his eyes lit up with curiosity. "What family business?"


	13. Amused much?

**ENJI**

**~...~**

The sun beat down hard from an unrelenting sky overhead when Enji stepped out of the public restroom. The smell of sticky cotton candy and salty popcorn drifted in the air around him, and Enji squeezed through the thick crowd of people around him.

Dante was trying to negotiate a refund from the ticketmaster behind a bright neon counter, after Enji threw up his corndog on the Loopy Dip ride. Enji had told him not to – getting refunds for tickets wasn't exactly feasible – but obviously Dante hadn't listened. It was all the chocolate he'd been eating today that was to blame for his upset stomach, but then Enji wasn't going to complain. It was his ninth birthday, after all, it wasn't every day he got treated to the amusement park.

A hand gripped his shoulder before he could break free of the crowd and head toward his father, and Enji whirled around in surprise. Trish was there, wearing a mischievous grin, her blue eyes glinting with glee.

"Hey, I thought you were on a job in Fortuna." Enji said, his face lighting up at the sight of her.

"Well," Trish said with a bashful shrug. "I decided I'd rather spend the day with the birthday boy. Come on, before Dante sees us."

"What?" Enji asked, confused when she wrenched him out of the flow of foot traffic into the shade, out of Dante's line of sight.

"Come on." Trish urged playfully, prodding him forward. "Did you see that new shuttle ride they've got here?"

"Uh... yeah, but they said it's not open yet." Enji frowned, allowing her to lead him past the rides toward the far side of the park. "Are you high on something?"

"What do you mean?" Trish asked over her shoulder.

"You're acting weird." Enji said, observing her dark jeans and frilly red blouse suspiciously. Not Trish's usual dress code.

Trish gave him a concerned look. "Don't be silly," Trish chided, and tugged him behind her faster. "We need to hurry before Dante comes looking for you."

"Why?" Enji asked, glancing around to see if Dante was following them or not.

"Because...well..." Trish hesitated, and broke out in a smile. "Because I'm supposed to be in Fortuna, aren't I? Oh, look, here it is."

Enji offered no resistance when she pulled him up the steps to the new ride. It was a large shuttle – a huge ball really – nothing spectacular about it but the flashy _Alien Raider_ sign above it. He glanced around, disconcerted, when Trish opened the door and propelled him inside.

"Hey!" Enji protested, steadying himself, and looked around with large eyes. There were only two seats inside, with a control panel that looked disturbingly real. "Are we allowed in here?"

"No." Trish snorted, gently pushing him into one of the seats and settling down beside him. "Ready?"

"Is this safe?" Enji asked uncertainly.

"Of course it is. The only reason why they haven't let people on here yet is because they're still spreading the hype about it." Trish said reassuringly, and buckled her seatbelt. "Do yours too, or it won't activate."

Enji fumbled with his own seatbelt in the dark until, finally, there was a click. The darkness around them disappeared and they were plunged into space. Enji stared in amazement as the earth revolved right in front of them; enormous, solid, and fragile. It was breathtaking.

An animated voice came over hidden speakers. "For many millennia, human civilisation has been residing on planet Earth in peace. Now, a wormhole has appeared in the Milky Way, and unleashed an army of foreign bodies intent on destroying the planet. It is your mission to take them out before they hit our atmosphere." The voice was distorted, the words slurred. Enji exchanged looks with Trish.

"Maybe that's why they haven't opened the ride up to public yet." Enji said. "The story sucks. And the guy sounds drunk."

Trish giggled – a lovely, warm sound that Enji had never heard from her before – and ruffled her hand through his hair. "So? The visuals are good enough. Are we going to fight off the bad guys, or what?" Trish challenged, taking hold of the controller mounted in front of her on the panel.

"Yeah." Enji said slowly, staring at her for another moment. "Yeah, okay."

By the time they finally re-emerged from the ride, the sun was low in the sky and the heat was diminishing quickly in the shadow of approaching dusk. Trish held his hand tightly as they sneaked down the steps, scanning the area nervously.

"I didn't realize we were at it this long," Trish mumbled unhappily.

Enji's beaming grin was fading quickly at her sudden tension. "What's it matter?"

Trish turned to him thoughtfully. "Dante would be worried."

"So? I can take care of myself. He taught me to fight, remember?" Enji arched his eyebrows at her.

"He... taught you to fight?" Trish repeated slowly, staring. "Not with weapons, I hope. You're still far too young for that."

"Yeah, with weapons." Enji said, stepping away from her warily and detangling his hand from hers. "What is up with you, Trish? You helped train me."

"Oh." Trish looked back at him with a look of pure frustration. "Damn it! He reminds me of an idiot I know."

"You're not Trish, are you?" Enji said uneasily.

"What are you talking about?" Trish shook her head, and snatched his hand again. "Let's go on the bumper cars before it gets too late."

Enji had no time to protest. She forcibly dragged him behind her through the throng of people, and proved to be a real hard-ass on the bumper car track. That was more like the Trish that Enji knew, and he decided not to bolt out of his own car to get away from her.

Instead, they spent a good fifteen minutes chasing one another. It didn't matter how hard he was pumping the gas, though, he couldn't crash into her hard enough. In contrast, Trish was somehow able to make him physically jolt back and forth in his seat every time she collided with him. The bell shrieked, announcing the end of the turn, and the bumper cars on the track ran dead.

Enji was halfway out of his own car when Trish jerked him behind one of the pillars, crouching down in front of him. Her face had a strained look on it that unsettled him. When Enji peered around the pillar, he spotted Dante talking to the guy manning the bumper track.

"I've got to go, Enji." Trish said quietly, and he scowled down at her when her voice shook.

"Trish, you're scaring me..."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Trish hiccupped, and pulled him into a warm hug. She held onto him for a long, long time, and Enji let her. It was weird, and awkward because Trish never displayed this level of warmth toward him, but strangely he found comfort in her arms.

"_Enji!_" Dante's shout echoed off the walls.

Trish jerked away from him, and Enji's eyes widened when he saw tears running down her cheeks.  
"Don't tell Dante I was here, or we'll be in big trouble." Trish sobbed, and planted a kiss on his cheek.

Enji grabbed her hand when she started to move away. "Don't go."

"I'm sorry." Trish said, gently but firmly pushing his hand away. "I'm sorry, Enji. Happy birthday."

She slipped into the mob of people filing out the room, and disappeared. It was too weird. It was Trish – Enji knew her, he saw her just about every day – but the personality was completely at odds with the one he'd grown up with. Enji didn't budge from his spot until Dante's voice snapped him out of his confused reverie.

"You little shit."

Enji looked up sharply and stared into fuming blue eyes. "Dad." He didn't know what else to say.

"Get to the car." Dante growled, shoving him forward by the neck. "Where the hell do you think you can get off by just disappearing like that? Fuckit, Enji, I've been looking all over this damn place for you."

"Sorry." Enji mumbled, keeping his head low as Dante marched him out of the amusement park. People sent funny looks at them as they went past, their curiosity and surprise at Dante's roughness turning into awkwardness.

"You're grounded." Dante snapped when they got in the car.

"For how long?" Enji asked, barely able to look at him. Dante was scary when he was mad, and right that moment, he was beyond pissed off.

"Until I feel like ungrounding you." Dante said heatedly. "You've got no fucking idea what you just put me through."

Enji shut up. He knew it was better to stay quiet and try steer clear of Dante when he was in a foul mood. Anything he said or did from hereon would only grind his nerves. Enji knew because he'd inherited that same temper point from his dad. When they got home, Dante didn't move from the car.

"Get out. Do your homework." Dante said through gritted teeth, his eyes everywhere but on Enji.

Enji obeyed quickly, and watched Dante speed out of the driveway before he even had the door properly closed behind him. He stood in front of the garage for a moment, listening to the engine fade into the distance. Enji turned with a miserable sigh to go into the house, and paused when he saw a pretty brunette in yellow sitting on their doorstep. Her green eyes were filled with concern.

"Hey." She said when he pulled the spare key from underneath the rotting welcome rug.

"Hey, Em." Enji said, unlocking the door. "Want some cookies? Kyrie baked them for me this morning."

"Sure." Emily followed him into the house. "Your dad looked angry."

"My dad has issues." Enji muttered, pulling the biscuit tin off the top shelf in the kitchen and offering it to her. He picked one of the bigger ones out himself and bit into it. "How was school?"

"The usual. Mr. Brady did another freak pop quiz in maths." Emily huffed, fishing through the tin of cookies with a finger. "Mark and Jerry have been talking trash about you again today."

"So?" Enji sniffed. "I don't care what they think."

"I know you don't, but I do. It's not fair of them to spread rumours that you're a narc, and I don't know what other bullshit they've been lying about." Emily said, her cheeks colouring red in anger. "I don't know why you put up with it, Enji. You should just stuff them up."

"They'll get what's coming to them." Enji sank down on a stool, and Emily joined him. "Sooner or later."

**~...~**

**Hiccup: I thought I'd post this one up since I won't be able to post again for a while (it's long weekend, whoop whoop!) It's from Enji's point of view, 'character switch' since he's going to be the main star from hereon. For now. Let me know what you guys think of him (honestly)? The next chapter will be longer, and better, devil's honour! *salute***


	14. To find oneself

"I'd rather it be sooner," Emily said. She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. "Enji, you can take them out. Teach them a lesson."

"You think I don't want to?" Enji said in disbelief. "I can't, not unless I'm defending myself, and since they found out who my dad is they've been keeping clear of me."

"So?" Emily demanded. "What stops you from getting some payback?"

"My dad." Enji said grouchily. "Teaches me the tricks of the trade and then makes me swear not to hurt anyone unless I feel threatened."

"Well, they're threatening your social rep. I think that ought to count." Emily contested.

Enji shook his head at her hopeful gaze. "Forget it, Em. Dad would kill me. He's already grounded me as it is."

"You're grounded?" Emily asked with a giggle. "Then why am I here?"

"He doesn't have to know I have company." Enji shrugged. "Did you bring my homework?"

"Yeah, it's in my bag. Want me to help..." Emily said, and stopped short when Enji flew off the stool and bolted down the hallway. "Enji, what's wrong?"

A door slamming shut answered her a second later. Emily sighed, and sent a discontent look around the open plan house. There was nothing homely about it. No photos and no decorations – unless you could call the hideous and rotting beast heads stabbed into the walls at random intervals decoration. There was a dusty worn out rug on the lounge floor behind her, and a red and black checked two-seat sofa, so old it had stuffing protruding from its aged wounds, was shoved up against the wall. The plasma screen television was on the other side of the room, and the only thing glossy and clean in the whole house. A violet guitar of sorts was leaned up against the wall beside it. A very weird guitar that sent off equally weird vibes.

Emily dropped off her stool and bravely walked down the hallway, carefully picking her way through the thin layer of garbage that made up the floor. She knocked her fist lightly on the bathroom door, and winced when she heard some unearthly and stomach-churning sounds coming from within.

"Enji? Are you okay?" Silence. Then a choking noise followed by a sound like water being dumped into a pool. Emily knocked again, harder this time. "Enji!"

Her hand twisted the knob and the door was open ajar when Enji finally responded. "Don't…I'll be out in a … a second…"

"Are you sick?" Emily asked, pausing uncertainly. She didn't want to see if he was, but she didn't want to just abandon him either.

"It's all that fucking chocolate." Enji muttered. From his tone of voice, she thought he didn't mean it for her ears.

"Do you want me to call Kyrie?" Emily asked, and blinked when he retorted with a curt, "hell no". She pushed the door open and peeked her head inside, and nearly gagged at the smell.

"Enji, don't be stubborn. If you're not feeling well I can always ask my mom to take you to the doctor when she gets home."

"Don't fuss, damn it. I'm fine!" Enji managed to get out before folding double over the toilet seat.

Emily wrinkled her face. "Whatever, Enji. I'm calling your dad." Emily didn't wait for him to recover and force out one or the other stupid remark.

She headed for the kitchen, picked up the phone and tapped the receiver against her chin thoughtfully as she scanned the millions of notes pasted to the fridge door. '_I'll know if you've been in here Enji', 'basketball practise on Thursdays', _and a long note depicting specific toppings on a pizza with a phone number beneath it. There were pink sticky notes in more readable, feminine writing; '_take trash out on Mondays'_ with a darker and different handwriting beneath it reading 'ENJI', '_no junk before supper', 'lay off the sugar'. _Then there were hasty, scribbled notes that Emily thought looked like gibberish but had an odd importance to them, like the bright red sticky that read '_for entrapment of teleporters – see Nissa at conference hall, 27-29 Churt street_', and the white note beside it with _YAMATO_ written in black ink.

She finally found the somewhat obscured list of emergency numbers, and punched in the one next to the name Dante. The phone rang… and rang… and rang… Emily was about to hang up and call Kyrie instead when there was finally a click on the other line.

"I'm working." A deep male voice shot into her ear. Emily paused, confused. Was it his answer machine? She waited a second for the beep, but it didn't come. Instead, the voice spoke again, this time with even less patience than before. "This had better be an emergency or I'm going to peel the skin off your ass when I get home."

Emily's breath hitched in her throat for a second before she could force her voice past the sudden fear. "Uh…hi. It's Emily."

"Huh." There was a moment of silence, and then the voice came back with a completely different tone. "Emily? Why are you calling from the house? What's wrong?"

"Enji is sick. I thought I should call you… if you're at work, I can ask my mom to take him to the doctor when she gets home, I'm sure she won't mind…"

"What do you mean he's sick?" Enji's dad didn't sound impressed. "If he's trying to play the sympathy card…"

"He's throwing up." Emily frowned, confused at his approach. She always thought Enji's dad was cool – the type of guy she would have wanted as her own father – and they seemed to get along really well when she was around. She'd never heard him this angry before, though, and funny enough, she felt like she was playing peacekeeper between two rivalling friends.

"Okay, I'm on my way." He said, and the line went dead in her ear.

Emily replaced the receiver and charged back to the bathroom with a tall glass of water when Enji stepped out into the hallway. His icy gaze swept over her and focused on the glass before meeting her gaze in dismay.

"I told you…"

"Shut up, Enji," Emily cut him off and spun him toward his room. "You need to go lie down."

"You didn't call my dad, did you?" Enji asked unhappily when he dropped onto his unmade bed. He groaned at her 'duh, stupid' expression. "Shit. Thanks a lot."

"Drink it up." Emily said, plunking the glass down on his side table. "What's your problem anyway?"

"Trish got me into trouble today." Enji said, sending the water a distasteful glance before curling onto his side and straddling a pillow. "And now Dad is majorly pissed off at me. I've got such a fucking wonderful life."

"Well," Emily sighed heavily. "Shit happens. What can you do, right?"

Enji pressed his face into the pillow and tensed when his stomach made a loud, agitated noise.

"What have you been eating?" Emily asked, arching her eyebrows at his blonde head.

"I can't remember…candy floss… chocolate… ice cream… corn dog…" Enji said, his words muffled.

"_Corn dog?_" Emily snapped, and slapped him on the back. "You idiot, I told you not to eat those things at the amusement park. They were in the paper the other day for causing food poisoning. You should go to a doctor, Enji. Or a hospital!"

"But it smelled so good and I was so hungry…" Enji protested weakly, and looked up when her weight lifted off the bed beside him. "Don't leave me!"

"I'm getting you a bucket before you spread your guts on the floor, stupid," Emily retorted over her shoulder before disappearing into the bathroom.

"Alll byyyy myyyyself… don't wanna beeee all byyy myyyself anymore…" She heard Enji lament across the hallway, and shook her head with a grim smile.

Enji offered a weak but genuine grin when she returned with a deep black bucket in hand. He didn't budge from his position on the bed, and when she offered the glass to him, he pursed his lips stubbornly. "I don't feel like water."

"You'll dehydrate if you don't keep up your fluid intake."

"Fuck, you sound like Kyrie. What, are you going to play nurse now?"

"Yeah." Emily smiled. "And as your nurse, I am telling you to shut the hell up and drink the damn water."

"But I don't wanna…"

"Fine! Just take it easy. I'll go do your homework for you, but you have to rest until your dad gets home, okay?"

"Okay." Enji said and stiffened again when his stomach did another dangerous loop. "Ow."

"I'm in the lounge if you need anything." Emily said, giving him an affectionate pat on the head.

Enji shuddered and closed his eyes when he was alone in the room. What a way to kill the day – and now he probably wouldn't get to go demon hunting with his dad tonight either, since they weren't exactly on even ground anymore. Damn Trish and her weird antics. Maybe if he just straight out told his dad that it was her fault – even if she did decide to give him a little painful electric jolt for betraying her, it would beat having his dad mad at him, and his grounding sentence would be lifted and…

…footsteps. Enji felt his muscles contract instinctively in the presence of demonic power. His first thought was to get to Emily as fast as he could to protect her. His eyes shot open, and he came face to face with a blackness so unyielding it nearly hurt his eyes. What the- where was he?

The hard, smooth floor chilled his bare feet. Enji went still, and when he did the footsteps stopped, too. His footsteps. Okay then. He started walking again, trying to keep his steps light, but in the infinite dark it resounded almost too loudly. Enji stretched his senses when his eyes wouldn't adjust. He was still learning exactly how to listen, and how to pick up on small things like differing temperatures and where the cool drafts were coming from, and what scents were carried in those drafts. But his training had been sufficient enough up to this point to help him establish where he was. He was in a tunnel, or a corridor of sorts.

It was so quiet. Too quiet. He could hear his own breathing. Silent inhale. Slow exhale. He had to keep moving. Common sense told him he couldn't just stand there and do nothing, because something was tugging at him. Not a physical tug, but a mental one. Enji scanned the tunnel ahead of him warily. Something was waiting for him in the dark. He couldn't see it, but his instincts warned him. He turned to look over his shoulder, and froze.

It wasn't completely dark after all. There was a doorway illuminated by a fuzzy blue neon light far behind him. Enji turned and started toward it. The demonic power intensified with every step he took. He tried to pick up the pace, but his movements were restrained and barely under his control, like some slurring nightmare. That's when it hit him – he's dreaming.

But it wasn't the realm of dreams that was slowing him down. It was fear. Pure, undeterred, icy terror pumped through his blood and shocked his nerves. Enji wanted to call out, but fear held him mute. If he made a sound, it would get him. It didn't know he was there – or maybe it did. Maybe it was waiting for him. He had to get to that fucking door.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His fingers twitched nervously. It felt like an eternity in damnation before he got closer to the doorway. That's when the whispering started. A hiss to his left. Another murmur behind him. A sigh that seemed to echo off the walls, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Enji wanted to run, but he couldn't. Maybe that's what had him wound up – having no control. No power. But he could take down whatever attacked him in the dark, he was confident he could. He wasn't afraid of demons, and he sure as hell wasn't afraid of nightmares.

He watched as the colour around the door altered and changed with every approaching step to a brilliant violet. He was close enough now to recognize that it wasn't a doorway at all. It was a mirror. The whispering increased with his every heartbeat.

It was a mirror, and he was in it but there was something wrong about his reflection. It wasn't until he was ten feet away from it that he realized with a chill what exactly it was – it wasn't his reflection, it couldn't be, because the image had its back turned to him.

Clad in royal blue from head to toe.  
His heart beat loudly in his ears. Another whisper off to his left. He took another step and paused, studying the reflection cagily. The fine frost blonde hair was his, down to the natural white highlights and the eerie glow that looked like layers of thin ice reflecting off the sun. The build was his, too, the exact same length, the same skinny limbs. The figure didn't move.

Enji swallowed hard and took another step. His mouth was dry. Tears pricked his eyes. The power was strongest here – overwhelming, suffocating, deadly, washing into him and past him in frosty waves. The terror was at its max here, too, as if entwined with the powerful source. The whispers moulded into a cacophony of fierce hissing. He couldn't distinguish words from the chaos.

Enji extended his arm to grab hold of his reflection's shoulder, to turn him around, to look himself in the eye. He took another step forward to do so, and heard the hissing clear into audible words. It blasted over him like someone screaming into a loudspeaker, shaking him down to the core. He caught the words "will not surrender" from an arctic voice in the second before something sunk its claws into his legs.

It ripped him off his feet and he crashed to the ground face first before he was ruthlessly dragged back into the dark, away from the mirror. Enji struggled against the unseen foes, thrashing about wildly and trying to kick them off. He'd found his voice and was screaming furiously as he tried to fight off their hands; shadows that tauntingly grabbed and released, grabbed and released, relentless and maddening.

He caught hold of a hand, felt its solid flesh against his, and twisted hard. Bone snapped, and a resonating "Ow, _fuck_!" jerked him out of the black.  
Enji stared wildly back up into the familiar face hovering above him. His chest was heaving hard, and sweat burned his eyes, and his body felt sore and cold. He was being pinned down on his bed, but when his stomach squeezed unhappily, he was released abruptly. Enji rolled onto his side and barely made it to the bucket in time.

When his puke session finally came to an end, Enji wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and leaned back weakly. Trish was perched on the bed beside him, and pushed his hair back before pressing a firm hand to his forehead. Enji's eyes flicked from her indifferent demeanour, to Dante's quiet martyr one. He was gripping his wrist hard.

Enji felt a jolt of guilt. "Sorry, Dad, I didn't…"

"Forget it, Enji." Dante said through clenched teeth, and offered a small, somewhat painful, lopsided smile. "Don't worry about it."

"Keep checking him. His fever should break soon. Those vitality pills can kick-start a dead horse." Trish said to Dante, and shook her head at Enji. "What have you two been up to for you to get this sick?"

"Like you don't know." Enji said and pulled a face at the sourness in his mouth.

"I don't," Trish said, raising an eyebrow at him worriedly. "Should I?" She asked, turning to Dante warningly.

"Hey, we just went to the amusement park." Dante said defiantly. "Don't look at me like that, I didn't get him sick."

Trish turned back to Enji for confirmation, and rolled her eyes heavenward when he returned her with a blank look. "You were there."

"I was in Fortuna, Enji. Remember? I was helping Nero track down a lair of scarecrows." Trish said. There was nothing in her voice or in her gaze to even remotely hint that she knew what he was talking about. She really was in Fortuna. But then, what the hell was running around with him at the park all day? Or, rather, who?

"Right." Enji mumbled, looking down at his damp hands. He didn't speak again until Trish had left and he was alone in the room with Dante. He sent a glance out his dark window, and caught sight of the time on his alarm clock. Half past eleven. "Dad, I had a really bad dream."

"Yeah, I know," Dante said wryly. "I had to restrain you from hurting yourself." He shook his hand – now healed – meaningfully.

"I thought you were one of the things that were trying to kill me." Enji said flatly.

Dante sank down on the bed beside him with a drawn out sigh. "Maybe you're too young to get into the devil hunting just yet."

"What?"

"If you're having nightmares about it…"

"Don't try this bull with me, Dad. You get nightmares, too." Enji interrupted angrily. "You think I don't hear you wake up in the middle of the night?"

"Uh…" Dante gave him an observing look, and hung his head, shrugging. "Tch. Okay. I'm just saying, you don't have to go through this, Enji. If it's too much for you…"

"Dad. I love doing what we do. It's the only thing I'm good at without screwing up." Enji said, and cringed back into the pillows when his stomach cramped tightly. "I need it."

"Fine. Until I find an alternative outlet for you, you can help me on certain missions." Dante caved in, and turned grave. "What was your dream about, anyway?"

"I was in some kind of abyss. Someone was calling to me, I'm sure of it, but there was something that was waiting to stop me from getting to him."

"Him?" Dante's eyes flashed at the boy.

Enji shrugged, and smoothed his hair back from his forehead, exhausted. Fine tremors still ran through his hands. "Yeah. It was like my reflection. And it had a lot of power, I mean… shit, Dad, there are no words. And I was trying to get to him. To me. He was me."

"He was you?" Dante asked in a clipped voice.

"I felt like I didn't exist, like I didn't have a body, and if I could get to him… to me, if I could submerge into myself and grab hold of that power, then I'd be able to get away from the thing in the dark…" Enji said.

"Power." Dante said quietly.

"Yeah. Power that would blow your mind." Enji nodded shakily, and let out a deep breath.

"What were you planning on doing with that power? Do you know?" Dante asked.

"Yeah." Enji said slowly, and his cool eyes met Dante's steadily. "I was going to take that power… find the thing in the dark. And kill it."

**~…~**

**Hiccup:  
Success! The whole dream bit is basically taken straight out my original novel *pets Joe on the head* it's okay boy, I didn't want to share you with the world anyway. Since I won't get my own twins published, seeing as Vergil and Dante have already stolen that spotlight *darn Hideki!* I thought I'd incorporate the dream scene into the fic, since it fits like a glove, and I barely had to change any detail of it. Easy peasy.**

**By the way, this chapter is just for you Zany! ;)**


	15. Beaten Down

Fierce frustration slithered through his body like a serpent breathing through his blood. Dante's blazing cold eyes darted from the wavy crystal ball on the small table, to the hag draped in shades of violet and emerald across from him. Her ring adorned fingers were clasped around the crystal ball, and she was watching him with bewilderment in her grey gaze.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" She said snootily.

"Try again," Dante snapped, leaning forward.

The woman sighed miserably, and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. There was a tense silence in the stifling, dimly lit room. Dante stared at the crystal ball so hard he thought it might split in two, or his eyes would drop out of his head.

"I'm sorry, Dante." The woman choked out and looked at him. "Perhaps there is something else of his that I can use to make a better connection?"

"Are you screwing with me? That's all I've got," Dante said, glancing at the red amulet she had spread out on the table around the crystal orb.

"Well I can't sense his presence in the afterlife. You're certain he's dead?"

"Nissa, c'mon." Dante said, cocking his head to the side in exasperation. He wasn't in the mood to discuss exactly how his brother had died, and it had cost him a bundle to get her to see him in the first place. Renowned as the best clairvoyant within the city boundary, and even more famous as a sorceress with unlimited resources, Nissa's services didn't come cheap or easy.

"Alright, alright," Nissa said with a shake of her head, wild auburn curls swaying around her shoulders. "Let me get through to my spirit guide, maybe he can tell me what you want to know."

"Please do." Dante said with rigid sarcasm. He watched her closely, and wondered whether he should just demand his money back and get the hell out, when Nissa's mouth opened and her eyes rolled back in her head.

"The one you seek has crossed over." A distorted, unstable voice filled the room.

"Crossed over to where, asshole?" Dante snapped, annoyed.

There was a long silence."To the world of the living."

"Reincarnated? That's what you're saying?" Dante said, and restrained himself from grabbing Nissa by the throat and choking it out of her.

"No....reborn..."

**~...~**

Students swarmed down the broad hallway toward the double exit doors, leaving behind the glossy pale floors and magenta walls of the building, and flooding the school parking lot. The atmosphere was considerably relaxed now that the day had finally come to an end. Enji and Emily wandered toward the outside world together. Emily looked annoyed, and Enji in turn looked like he'd been given a death-sentence with is features drawn tight over bone and bland of colour.

"Again? Enji, c'mon, I like having you around but you can't pack off at my place every single day." Emily said gently.

"But you're my only friend," Enji wheedled. "Emily, come on, you don't know what it's like. My dad is seriously scary as of late."

"You're telling me you're afraid of your dad?" Emily asked sceptically.

"Have you seen how he looks at me? I mean, he stares at me with these piercing eyes, like he's trying to read my fucking mind – you'd piss yourself, too, Em." Enji said, and widened his eyes pleadingly. "Just for today, please?"

"Did you ask him what's wrong?" Emily asked.

"Like I wanna know? He's been acting weird ever since I told him about that dream I had." Enji said and crunched up his face. "He hasn't been the same since, and I don't think it's because I broke his hand."

"With weird you mean-?"

"I mean he just treats me differently. Like he's scared to come near me. He doesn't even want to continue training me, Emily, and he won't let me go hunting with him. We can't just hang out and have fun like we used to either, because there's always some sort of tension between us." Enji said and sighed dramatically. "I can't take it. I'm going to lose my cool with his stupidity, and you'll be to blame because you won't let me come hang at your place."

"Maybe you should take the initiative and show him that you're still the same old Enji?" Emily suggested as they started to descend the stairs outside. The wind swept over them, whipping Emily's long black hair around her face and driving the aroma of her raspberry conditioner in his direction. Along with the pleasant scent came another sharp, salty, and sweaty scent. Enji sidestepped and ducked suddenly, and turned to look at the group of boys that had been waiting to ambush him. Steve was standing with his hands outstretched, as though he'd been about to push him down the stairs.

"Oh, you guys, get a life!" Emily said irritably when she noticed them, too. "Come on, Enji."

Enji took a step down, watching the boys through suspicious narrowed eyes. Emily drifted past him toward the parking lot. He took another wary step down.

"Get him!" Steve hollered, and his three friends launched at Enji. They caught him by his backpack and by his collar, and yanked him out of sight from others who might come to his aid. Enji staggered when Mark shoved him around the side of the school building, and landed hard on his rump.

"You guys, stop it! Enji!" Emily's helpless cry followed them.

Enji shrugged out of his backpack and climbed to his feet, easily dodging the kicks and fists thrown at him. He saw Emily take off suddenly, and groaned inwardly. If she was going to get a teacher, the blame for this incident would only get put on him. It was three supposedly 'good' student's word against his – the outcast, the reject. Well, if he had to go down, he'd damn well go down swinging.

Enji spun around when the boys circled him and closed in, their fists pumping and their flushed faces disfigured with nasty scowls. A kick to Steve's gut; a right hook to Mark's face; a classy uppercut to Peter's jaw; a kick to Rob's chest. Enji breathed into every move, putting power behind every premeditated action. He eased out of his fighting stance and dropped his fists, surveying the groaning boys scattered on the ground around him. Mark was clutching his face, red liquid dripping through his fingers, and Peter was out cold as far as he could tell.

Enji didn't hang around to take in how much damage he'd caused with the other two boys. He snatched his backpack up and bolted toward the safety of the parking lot, trying hard to ignore the raw throbbing across his knuckles. If they told on him, he was going to be in so much shit...

His pace slowed down when he saw Emily heading right toward him, tugging a tall figure in red leather behind her anxiously. Enji came to a halt, and cringed when his father's eyes gave him a quick one over. There was murder in his gaze.

"I thought you were out working." Enji said.

Dante lifted his shoulders in response. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Enji said.

"Let's get going."

Enji followed meekly but not before sending an accusing glare at Emily. He slid into the leather seat and shut his door, fumbling with the lock for his seatbelt. He could feel Dante's eyes burning into him. Enji swallowed an aggravated sigh when Dante finally spoke.

"Have you had any more weird dreams again?"

"No." Enji said curtly, and jammed the metal piece into the lock angrily.

"Tell me if you do." Dante said, and turned on the engine.

"Get over it already, Dad." Enji grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. He shifted uneasily when Dante looked at him sharply. "I'm just saying, you're acting like a crazy person."

"Well this whole deal is fucking crazy," Dante said, and Enji cringed. It didn't seem to take much to get his dad worked up anymore. "I think I know who you are."

Enji tensed, unnerved, and sent a cautious glance at him. "What?"

"I have a theory, about that dream you had. It would explain who you are. It would explain a lot of things."

"Dad, what the hell are you talking about? I'm not confused about who I am."

"No, but I am...was. You're Vergil. Reborn." Dante said, and shook his head with an angry smirk. "Of all the things..."

"Dad?" Enji said carefully.

"I'm not your dad, damn it, Enji! Don't you remember who you are?"

Enji paused, and turned in his seat to face Dante squarely. "What do you mean?"

"You'll see when we get home." Dante said in an odd voice.

"_No_. What do you mean you're not my dad?" Enji snapped coldly.

"I _said_ you'll see when..."

"Stop the car." Enji said quietly, glaring at the man beside him.

"What?"

"Stop the fucking car!" Enji exploded.

He was glad Dante obeyed, because when he leapt onto the sidewalk he found his body was shuddering with an inner war between his icy rage and his head; emotion that wanted nothing more than to release itself upon Dante; and the cool logic of his mind opposing the idea. He'd get floored. Dante was far more experienced than he was, and way stronger. Right that moment, though, Enji didn't trust what he was going to do, so he did the only thing he could. He walked away.

"Enji, get back here!" Dante called from behind him.

"Get lost!"

"Don't make me come aft... agh, damn it..."

Enji heard a car door open, and he hastened his pace. He stiffened when he felt a hand seize him by the shoulder, and he didn't offer any resistance when Dante spun him around. He knelt down to Enji's height, but he refused to look him in the eye.

"Everything will be explained once we get home. Don't be difficult." Dante chided.

"You know what?" Enji said, and finally looked up. "You can go to hell." He wrenched out of Dante's grasp, slowly backing away from him.

"Enji, get in the car." Dante said, his face hardening.

"Why? I don't have to listen to you."

" Listen..." Dante said, straightening up to his full length.

"This is fucking wonderful. Like not having a mom isn't bad enough, now I don't have a dad either? Life is just getting better every fucking day!"

"En..."

"_Go to hell_!" Enji shouted furiously. He'd stopped backing away and stood solid, every inch of his body burning to vent out the pent up rage it contained. One more step, if he took one more step toward him, Enji was sure he was going to lose control and try to rip Dante apart.

Dante didn't move. They stood several feet apart, staring at one another. "Enji, please don't make this any harder than it already is."

Enji pursed his lips together hard, and glared at the concrete by his feet. When he eventually tore his gaze from the ground to focus frosty daggers on Dante, his expression was a bland canvas of indifference. He lifted his hand, and took a step back.

"Don't follow me." His voice sounded as cold and sharp as icicles. Enji turned around, and simply walked away.

Dante lingered for a long moment, watching Enji's retreating back. He'd gone about this the wrong way, but then he didn't know how to tackle something of this magnitude in the first place. Dante let out a long-suffering breath, and ran a hand across his face in frustrated bitterness.

He knew it would be stupid to force Enji to come with him now – it wasn't that easy for him to admit the truth to Enji, and despite the circumstance Dante thought it had gone down better than he expected. No blood was drawn, at least. But his words had inflicted just as much damage as any sword would have. Enji needed time to cool down, and Dante wasn't going to disrupt that.  
He'd have to call in Trish and Kyrie, though, to be the voice of reason when Enji gets back home.

If Enji came back home.

~...~

**Hiccup:  
**_**Please see my bio for the next scheduled update.**_**  
Thanks for your story alerts and faves, but for those of you have not yet done so: PLEASE leave me a review.  
And for those of you who have reviewed – you guys ROCK!!! *tosses Dante and Vergil plushies into the air* Yeah, PARTY!!**


	16. Fwuff

Pale light flickered from the enormous screen mounted at the front of the black theatre. The volume vibrated against the walls, seeped into his ears and danced through his bones. On-screen a masked man revving a chainsaw was lurking through a dim hallway, calling out in an eerie voice 'come out, come out, wherever you are'. The audience was completely engrossed.

In the far back corner of the theatre sat Enji. His legs were propped up on the seat in front of him, his arms folded under his head, with popcorn bits flaked across his chest. He didn't stir when the crowd broke out in the occasional terrified gasp. His mind blanked out the film and people around him – spending three days straight in a cinema turned him immune to the entertainment aspect. He was starting to reek, and his stomach was lamenting its longing for something more substantial than M&M's and popcorn. There had been nowhere else he could go where he wouldn't be found, though. Nobody would think of looking for him here, and up to date he'd been pretty good at sneaking past the cinema staff.

Enji didn't want to go home. He had no home. He didn't have a mother, and now the person who had been the only solid force in his entire life had admitted to the ultimate betrayal. His temper had simmered down over the past few days, but even if his anger toward Dante had started to fade, he was as far from forgiving him as hell was from heaven.

"Popcorn?" A faintly familiar voice jolted Enji upright in his seat.

He squinted at the person beside him in the faint light. His first impression was that it was Nero – but if it had been Nero, he wouldn't be offering him popcorn. He'd be hauling Enji's ass out of the cinemas and throw him into the face of Kyrie's frantic wrathy relief. It wasn't Dante either – he was too young to be him.

Finally, Enji recognized him, but the name evaded him. Nero's brother, or some other – the dude that always pitched up on his birthday with presents that rivalled those of Dante's. Enji dug his hand into the jumbo box being held to him, and shoved his mouth full of salty popcorn.

"Why did you run away?"

"'Cause Dante is a dick." Enji muttered, propping his feet back onto the seat in front of him. "Did you know he's not my dad?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." Enji said, and glared at the screen. "So everyone's in on the joke then."

"No." The Wimp flashed Enji a faint smile. "They are all pretty convinced you're his kid. There's no reason for anyone to doubt it. You're the spitting image of him, and you've got all his mannerisms, too."

"Well according to him, I'm some reincarnation of a Vergo or something."

"Heh." The Wimp said with a shake of his head, and his smile suddenly snapped off. "What?"

"Don't ask me, I've got no clue what he's been putting on his pizza." Enji shrugged in reply.

"Why would he think you're a reincarnation?" The Wimp said, completely puzzled. "You're nothing like Vergil."

"I had a nightmare – one of those where you can see yourself and you try to get to your body, but something holds you back. It was weird, but not _that_ weird. Lots of people have dreams like that. Sort of." Enji fumed quietly.

"Were you dead? In the nightmare, I mean."

"No."

"Pfft." The Wimp said, leaning back in his own seat before stuffing his mouth with popcorn. He chewed thoughtfully for a long moment, and sent a smirk at Enji. "You're not a reincarnation."

"Tell Dante that." Enji said.

"I would, but he's got a sneaky scheme in place to trap me. Very possibly to beat the shit out of me."

"Why would he do that?"

"Guess he just doesn't like me much," The Wimp shrugged carelessly and swiftly redirected the conversation. "Enji, you need to go home."

"Hell no. He lied to me. Do you know what it's like to be totally alone?" Enji said, and shut up at the streak of pain that crossed the older man's face.

"I have a fair idea. But if you go back, you won't _be_ alone. You'll have Dante, and Kyrie, and Tr..." The Wimp said meaningfully, ticking the list off on his fingers.

"I _am_ alone. I don't have a mom or a dad." Enji cut in, and frowned hard at him. "If you knew Dante's not my father, you probably already know that my mom abandoned me when I was a baby."

"Your mom didn't abandon you. She didn't want to give you up, Enji. That's why I had to be the one to drop you off at Devil May Cry." The Wimp said, and smiled apprehensively when Enji's eyes widened. "Yeah, I know your mom. I'm keeping an eye on you for her sake. Now don't..."

"You know her? Where is she?"

"Right this very moment? No idea. Probably watching her favourite soap opera at home," The Wimp said, glancing at the watch around his wrist, and met Enji's gaze. "I can't take you to her. There is a reason why she couldn't keep you, Enji. That hasn't changed, and it won't change for a long time to come. Don't ask me, because I can't do it."

Enji's excitement folded up and collapsed in on itself. He slouched back in his seat in miserable defeat. "Can you at least tell me why?"

"She can't protect you. That's why I chose Dante for the job." The Wimp said. He leaned closer to the boy, his eyes piercing blue daggers that seemed to see right through his skin. Enji tensed – it was the same look Dante had when he'd aired out the stupid idea that Enji was someone else. A half-excited, half-frightened expression – a crazy look. "There is a prophecy in the demon world, that the Dark Prince will awake to a new power, and he will come to the human world with all the wrath and hatred of Hell behind him, to merge the worlds as one. To rule over all demons, and all humans."

"Uh-huh." Enji said sceptically.

"But it also says that there will be a saviour, the Fallen Knight, who will rise again to clear the darkness. He is the only one who can defeat the Dark Prince once and for all; he's the only one who holds the power to destroy that son of a bitch."

"You're talking about Sparda." Enji said, with an impassive air. "Lots of people think he's going to miraculously be resurrected and seal away the remaining demons."

"Think that won't happen?" The Wimp asked curiously.

"Nah. He wasn't all that cool, and it's just speculation, anyway. Dante says _he_ is the new Sparda. 'Cause he had to clean up the mess the real dude left behind."

"What_ mess_? Dante doesn't know shit."

"Neither do you. The prophecy you're on about has been done and dusted ages ago. The Fallen Knight is just a wistful wish somebody tacked on to the actual legend. If you don't know _that_, where have you been?"

"Enji, I know the facts. The Fallen Knight refers to a descendant of Sparda's."

"Dude, you're talking about the _legend_. Sparda sealed Mundus away a few millennia ago..."

"No shit, smartass." The Wimp interrupted. His brows knitted together in an obnoxious scowl, and there was a hint of genuine frustration in his voice. "I know a bit more on the subject matter than anyone else. It doesn't say the Dark Prince will necessarily be Mundus. If it was, I could kick his ass myself."

"You?" Enji snorted, and shrugged at the crafty look the Wimp responded with. "So what's the prophecy got to do with me?"

"Everything, according to the demon realm. They believe you're the Fallen Knight. Why do you think they are so intent on killing you?"

"Okay." Enji said slowly. "So... am I?"

The Wimp chewed his lip uncertainly for a moment. "You could pass for him."

Enji lifted his eyebrows in annoyance, and returned to staring blankly at the massive screen. "You like to avoid answering questions, don't you?"

"Some things are better left unsaid." The Wimp said, and shoved the box of popcorn into Enji's chest. "Go home, Enji."

"I'm not going back..."

"You have to." The Wimp snapped in a voice so harsh it made Enji cringe. "You're the only thing that's kept Dante on his feet for a long time now. I don't give a shit if you feel hard done by. Welcome to the real world, Enji."

**~...~**

When Enji eventually went back home, his safe return was welcomed by Dante first giving him stick, and then celebrated for a full two days before things settled back to normal. Or, as normal as they could get.

Dante was still pretty weird around him, except for the times when they'd have their usual dilemmas, like their wrestling matches to get Enji to brush his teeth, and their constant debates over the importance of vegetables in a half-breed's diet. And then there were the occasional planned ambushes Enji devised – catching Dante off guard the second he sets foot out his room by shooting a stream of cold water right in his face from Enji's set of water guns, and then the usual rough play that followed to see who got soaked most. Those were the few times when Enji really knew Dante.

The man that otherwise wandered the house had become a stranger to him. A dark, quiet, and depressing guy that tempted Enji to punch him out of it. He didn't know this Dante, and he didn't like him.

Enji levelled his gaze at Dante, draped over the couch across from him, who returned his look evenly.

"I'm not going to tell you again, Enji."

Enji stared back at him, and finally at the plate of food set out in front of him. "Why?"

"You need it to nurture your body. You can't expect to stay strong by living off junk food. You need your vegetables."

"Nurture your body," Enji repeated mockingly, glaring at the green and orange mush on his plate. "I _don't_ need it."

"Yeah, you do. Now eat it."

"You don't, so why do I have to?" Enji fired back.

"I don't count."

"Why?"

Dante blinked, and slowly leaned forward on the couch. He looked confused for a second. "Because I said so. Look," he said, running a hand through his silver hair in a helpless gesture. Time for a strategy change. "Popeye eats his spinach and beats up the bad guy. _And_ he gets the girl."

"Agh, shit, here we go again with the super dudes. Popeye?" Enji repeated, arching an eyebrow incredulously. "Why can't I beat up the bad guy and just get the girl? Why bring veggies into the mix?"

"Well... you like Bugs Bunny, right?" Dante faltered.

"Yeah?"

"He's a cool guy." Dante said, and picked up a carrot stick. He munched it down noisily, and did a damn good impersonation of "Say, what's up, doc?"

"I'm not a rabbit, Dante." Enji said.

Dante spat out the orange gunk in defeat. It left a faint, sweet residue on his tongue. "Bleah."

"Besides, Spiderman doesn't have to eat his veggies to stay strong." Enji added.

"How do you know?"

"Come on, Dante. He's _Spiderman_."

"Batman eats his veggies." Dante pounced.

"Batman is a human guy with too much money and too much time on his hands. You can't compare him to Spiderman." Enji said with a snort.

"They're both superheroes." Dante pointed out.

"So is Superman, but none of them are in the same league."

"Superman ate his veggies," Dante said confidently. "He grew up on a farm. There was no way he didn't eat it."

"Who cares? I'm more like Spiderman, because he's not all human. So what applies to him should apply to me, too."

"Touché." Dante grunted. "You still have to eat your vegetables."

"I'm not touching that."

"Do it, or I'm calling Trish."

"You're bluffing." Enji said, but his cockiness waned at the mention of the vixen.

"Oh yeah?" Dante said. He made a show of getting up and dialling Trish's number. Enji sat rigidly on the couch, watching him through a panicked haze. When Dante made the call and retook his position across from him, the tension suddenly slipped from Enji's frame and a spiteful grin spread across his face.

"She's going to be pissed." Enji said.

"It's not too late to back out. Eat it, and I'll stop her from electrocuting you." Dante offered nonchalantly.

"I'm not touching that." Enji said confidently.

They didn't move for a while, caught up in a silent stare-war, until the doorknob rattled and the front door swung open on squeaky hinges. Dante turned to see Trish rush into the house, a look of alarm on her flushed face.

"I got here as fast as I could! What's the emergency?" Trish panted out.

Dante opened his mouth and gestured toward Enji, when his eye fell on the now empty plate between them. Enji was leaning back against the couch, licking his lips, blue eyes glinting with mischief.

"Uh...well..." Dante stammered, eyes darting from the plate to Enji and back. How the hell did the kid manage to devour all that crap in two seconds?

"What are you doing here?" Enji asked casually, sending a wink back at Dante before turning an innocent and mock confused face to Trish. "I thought you were working on some hard case?"

"I am," Trish said and looked at Dante expectantly. Her alarm was quickly diminishing into something frighteningly like angry confusion. "Well? What did you call me out here for?"

"I...uh...tch... just really wanted to see you?" Dante said and produced the most charming smile he could muster.

Trish didn't fall for it. The front door closed behind her a minute later, and Enji climbed to his feet to pick up his empty plate. He smirked down at Dante, flat on his back on the floor and twitching as sparks danced across his form.

"Heh. Score one for the E-Master," Enji said, strolling from the room in triumph.

"Little...bastard..." Dante choked in between bouts of shockwaves.

~...~

**Hiccup: Fluff chapter, mostly. Sorry if the story seems to be dragging, I'll get it back into action in the next update.**

Slightly off topic: for all my fellow readers and writers alike,  
Vergil and Dante have concocted a master scheme that mostly involves Dante kicking demon ass, Vergil greedily using people to get more power, and some epic jackpot moments. That's the jest of it from their side, at least.  
It is also globally known as roleplay, and we need more players! So, this is me, on behalf of Vergil and Dante, appealing to writers out there who are keen to test their skills in dabbling with words, to please join us here: http : // forums . devilmaycry . org /  
Roleplay is located in the fanfiction thread on the forum. Send me a PM if you're interested, or let me know in your review and I'll be in touch :)


	17. The Plot Thickens

~...~

"That was a rush," Dante said half-heartedly as he crossed the length of Devil May Cry. His boots were heavy and sounded dully across the wood floorboards. He paused at his desk, slipped his pistols from their holsters and placed them on the glossy table top with affectionate care. "I'm almost sad it ended so soon."

Dante settled into his chair and looked over when the sound of the bar fridge door wrench open filled the otherwise silent office. He studied the lanky youth crouched down in front of it; blonde hair tousled, blue shirt shredded and stained with blood – his own, and then some.

"Yeah...got my appetite worked up..." the mumbled reply came.

"Heh," Dante chuckled, propping his feet up on the desk before him. His grin faded as quickly as it came, and his gaze became hooded and hard as he observed the boy.

Enji had hit a ridiculous growth spurt when puberty came; ironically it coincided with Dante's memories of his own puberty. His voice had broken into a deeper baritone, he'd suffered severe acne that even had demons squirm in disgust, and his body drastically extended in length practically overnight and caused Enji to whack his head into things he never used to have to duck for – all of this occurring within a week. Exactly like what Dante had gone through in his teenage years.

Only, Enji had handled it smoothly, and quickly adapted to his new developed body. Of course he had to unless he wanted to become demon food. Yet there had been no awkwardness. He moved his slim, lengthy limbs with natural finesse; his obscenely zit coated face had responded with a mask of indifference to Dante's light-hearted taunts, making even Dante feel inferior for taking a crack at him. He'd expected Enji to suffer more through that phase because the kid had it so easy, had just about everything he wanted handed to him on white-gold platters. Enji never had it tough like Dante had. Which made it doubly disturbing that the kid would handle puberty the exact same way Dante had when he was young.

Which was also the instigator of what Dante was about to do.

Over the years, he'd discovered that although Enji displayed some qualities he could recall of Vergil, he was nothing like Vergil. He was too much like Dante. Too much. The apple didn't fall far from the tree – it had become Lady's favourite saying, partially because it was true, partially because she knew it got him worked up to an extent.

And doubt had begun to clutter Dante's resolute denial. He knew the facts – knew that Enji was Eva's son, knew that he sure as hell wasn't the father, knew that Enji was no reincarnation of any kind. What threw him was that it made no sense exactly why Enji was so much like him. He would put it down to the fact that Enji had no other rolemodel to conform to, but Dante wasn't stupid. He would shrug it off as a 'monkey-see-monkey-do' scenario, but Dante wasn't ignorant. He and Enji were too alike – hence the constant heated fights exploding between them – too similar in behaviour. It was disconcerting because Dante sometimes knew what the kid was thinking. He could see inside Enji's head.

Looking at Enji now seated on the couch against the wall, struggling with a can opener and a tall can, Dante could see himself. It was starting to freak him out. He needed answers, and he knew the only way to get those answers involved a lot of pain, and shedding blood. Innocent blood. Enji's blood.

"What are you doing?" Dante scowled.

"I'm trying to open this stupid thing," Enji growled back, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows, and readjusting his grip on the can opener.

Dante watched him battle for another moment, and sighed in resignation. "Alright. Gimme, I'll do it." He'd barely finished the sentence before Enji hurled the can at him in frustration. Dante caught it in his left hand, but the can opener flew right past his shoulder and slammed into the wall behind him with a loud snap. He tilted the chair back as far as he could go, snatched the utensil off the floor with his fingers, and sent a curious look at the boy. Enji was still on the couch, scratching at his head with both hands in a gesture of irritation, before he smoothed his hair back and returned Dante's stare with a frown.

"Baked beans?" Dante asked, shaking the can at him.

"On toast." Enji said. "If we can get the damn can open."

"Well, that's what dads are for, I guess. Seeing as yours is too much of a wuss to man it up, I'll have to deal with it," Dante muttered, setting to work on the can.

"Seen him around lately?" Enji asked idly.

"Only in the mirror," Dante ground out. " He won't come to the shop. Think he's afraid I'll kick his ass."

Enji watched Dante struggle with the can the same way he had moments before. "Trish says you're delusional. She's pretty much convinced you are my father."

"Trish doesn't know shit." Dante snapped, getting a tighter grip on the can and biting his tongue in concentration.

"Forget it, Dante. There's nothing more degrading than losing a fight with an inanimate object," Enji said and shrugged at Dante's sharp glance. "We'll go for pizza."

"With who's cash? I'll get it, just... there's something wrong with this..." Dante's hand slipped.  
Enji's eyes grew round at the sudden movement. Blood shot across the desk like little crimson comets. There was a moment of startled silence as they both eyed the deep gash in the flesh of Dante's thumb, already starting to heal itself. Enji opened his mouth to repeat his earlier solution to the problem, and got as far as inhaling a breath. Dante slammed the can onto the desk, and the lid blew open with a resounding thwack, sending a wave of baked beans oozing from the tin, across his bloody fingers, pooling on the desk.

"Screw it." Dante muttered, and reached for Ivory.

Enji's mouth snapped shut and his eyes narrowed in silent fury when Dante aimed the pistol right at him. "I told you to leave it."

"Shut up, kid." Dante said, slowly rising up from the chair and rounding the desk with deliberate sluggishness. Part of him recoiled at the idea of what he was about to do – after spending sixteen years working his ass off to keep Enji alive and protected against the scum of hell itself, it was pure insanity that Dante would be the one to bring the kid face to face with death.

It was a mistake to even think about it. Enji sensed the turmoil in Dante, and relaxed his stiff shoulders, indirectly calling Dante's bluff. He pulled off his tattered shirt and tossed it onto a pile of empty pizza boxes and empty beer bottles heaped in a corner of the room. He slumped back into the couch and scowled when Dante didn't lower his weapon.

"More training? Shit, Dante, wasn't today's work enough? I don't know about you, but I'm deadbeat," Enji said.

Dante shoved all sentiments aside. Some situations called on the toughest action to be taken for the greater good. No one knew that better than him. His grip on Ivory tightened, and his face froze over with ice. "Not dead enough."

The door clicked open the second Dante's finger pulled back on the trigger. Metal scathed against metal, and a shot rebounded through the office. It sounded louder than usual to Dante's ears, but it didn't deter him. Enji was a quick little shit, though – he'd rolled out of the way of the speeding bullet and was on his feet, flashing a cocky smirk back at him. Dante had figured the kid would put up a show, but he had Enji's trust as a fighting companion to his advantage. It was only a matter of seconds before the boy would realize that Dante, for once, wasn't playing.

"Getting slow, old man." Enji fired back at him.

"Am I interrupting something?" Nero's voice added.

Keeping his aim right on target, Dante shot an irate glance at Nero. Fucking wonderful timing. Enji was going to be a piece of cake – Nero was going to pose a problem. Nero had paused mid-stride and uncertainty crossed his face when he noted the devil hunter's hard expression. Enji was half turned toward Nero, his poise carelessly relaxed. Dante's icy eyes darted from Nero's Devil Bringer to Red Queen sheathed on his back, his mind ticking through the sequence of events to follow with strategic accuracy.

"Nah. We were gonna head out to grab some pizza, want to join..." Enji started.

The second Nero's gaze turned to focus on Enji, Dante backed up toward the desk, at the same time swinging his arm to fire several shots at Nero. One bullet hit him in the shoulder, two more struck him on the elbow and wrist; calculated areas to weaken the Devil Bringer. The unexpected attack activated Nero's devil trigger, and then Dante had Rebellion in his free hand.

Nero staggered back a step, gripping his arm, too stunned to retaliate for a minute. Dante used that minute to his full advantage. Enji had in turn taken a step closer to Nero, equally caught off guard, and didn't turn in time to dodge the next barrage of bullets fired his way. Several hit him in the arm and neck, sending Enji flying sideways. Dante streaked across the room in a blur of red with Rebellion at the ready, and impaled the boy before his body could hit the ground.

"Dante... stop! What are you..." Nero stammered, standing back in shock to gape at Enji on the floor.

"Stay out of this," Dante cut him off, and twisted Rebellion in Enji's mid-riff, evoking a terrible scream of agony from the boy.

"Help –"

The cry seemed to kick Nero out of his stumped paralysis. Yamato manifested in his Devil Bringer hand, and Nero braced himself inwardly when he charged. Dante deflected the blow smoothly, and pushed Rebellion down on the katana blade in a sword-wrestle. Metal burned against metal. He could see the flash of pain through the younger man's eyes, and a second later Nero's arm caved beneath the force Dante exerted. Yamato clattered to the floor, and Dante performed a good old fashioned roundhouse kick that sent Nero sailing into the wall.

Without waiting to see if he'd done a good job at putting Nero down, Dante turned back to Enji. The kid had crawled across the room to the door, leaving a stream of rich crimson in his wake. Dante watched his painful, frantic movements to reach the doorknob, and then Enji glanced over his shoulder at him. Their eyes met, and Enji's bloody hand dropped on the floor beside him with defeat. Dante's legs moved him closer to the boy, and he held Rebellion steady to finish the job. Enji writhed on the floor when Dante drew closer. There was no way in hell he was going to be able to fight Dante off. No way to dodge. No way to run. He was deadmeat. Enji closed his eyes and dropped his forehead into the floor with a loud thump. Dante could hear the kid's thought. _Fuck._

Any time now, you damn dipshit, Dante thought when he stopped beside Enji's form. He lifted Rebellion. If he did kill Enji right this moment and awakened the kid's devil form, there was no doubt in his mind that Enji was going hand his ass back to him, with interest. But Enji didn't know about his devil form, didn't know how it could be gained –Dante had always been stingy on giving him that info. Good thing too. Else Enji wouldn't be experiencing the genuine fear of dying right now...else Enji would have been useless and Dante's ingenious plan wouldn't work...

Dante's muscles flexed as he started to bring Rebellion down, aiming for Enji's chest – and there it was. Just in the nick of time. Just as he'd known it would happen. A slip in the air, a disturbance so fleeting he wouldn't have taken notice of it if he hadn't been waiting for it. Dante pulled a trickster manoeuvre the same instant the Wimp materialized out of seemingly nowhere. The Wimp crouched down beside Enji in alarm. Dante moved in behind him a fraction of a second later, stepping into the exact spot he'd appeared.

There was a rush of power; it encased him, somehow got into his blood. It hurled him with breath-choking force through a hurricane of blurring colours. It was over as quickly as it began. Dante took an eager step away from the teleporting vacuum, cold eyes surveying the environment around him. Deep crimson carpet. Cream-coloured painted walls, half panelled with golden oak. Tall arching windows framed by velvet amber drapes, looking out over a tidy rosebush adorned garden bed. To his right, a wide pinewood cabinet displayed an impressive assortment of books. A slick black stereo was singing classical music into the room, a CD rack beside it showed a collection of Beethoven, Vivaldi, Debussy, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Strauss. There were photographs framed in glossy platinum gold. Dante took a step toward it, eye catching on one photo in particular. That looked a lot like...

A sound behind him caught Dante in his tracks, and he turned sharply to face it. A maid in pale blue was scuttling from the room through an open mahogany door, carrying a tray of silverware that rattled as she bounced down a long hallway. Dante set after her with steady, careful steps, drinking it all in. The hallway itself was wide with a lofty ceiling. Acrylic portraits lined the walls, and several identical corridors branched off to the sides. His steps slowed down when he approached the end of the hallway. It opened up to an elongated room with gold chandeliers and polished floorboards, a room bare, apart from a couple of plush chairs placed against the walls at random intervals.

A colossal mirror stood in one section of the room, and in front of it was a pair of young people.

Both were dressed in white robes, facing the mirror, each wielding a four feet long katana in their left hand. Sheathing the katana, a step forward with the right leg, bending the knee, unsheathing the katana and unleashing a diagonal cut through the air – done so fast that it seemed to be one movement instead of two – sheathing the katana again, moving back into a relaxed standing position. Taking a step with the bent right leg again, unsheathing the katana once more, pressing the scabbard from the left hip toward the back with the left elbow and twisting the body to face an imaginary foe behind them, jabbing out with the katana in the right hand in one smooth forward streak. Swinging the right foot around to turn the body back to the mirror, grasping the hilt of the katana with both hands and bringing it over in a long vertical cut; turn the body to the right, bring the katana down in another diagonal swing, turning around to face the left, taking a step forward and bringing the katana down again – fending off invisible foes circled around them. Stepping back, katana held above the head, swiping it down to the side, a pause, and then smoothly, slowly, slipping it back into the sheath. There was power in every step, fierce discipline behind every refined move. The technique was direct and simple – Dante recognized it.

He stood frozen in a trance, unable to tear his eyes away. They moved completely in synch; a mirror image of the other. It was quite a sight to behold, beyond impressive. Both with flaxen hair that glared in the sunlight slanting through the arching window. Both with long, limber legs and arms, perfect postures. One of them was a girl with an innocent, youthful complexion; biting her lip and scowling softly with intense concentration. A mini-replica of Trish. The other was Enji.

Dante heard his heart thump dully in his ears as he stared. Eva glided into the room from a door in the corner, behind the training duo. Her white and pale purple dress whispered around her ankles as she strolled across the wooden floor with her bare feet. Her head was bent over a thick book in her hands, the scowl on her face reflecting the one on the younger girl's. Eva halted in her tracks suddenly, and her frown deepened.

Enji had noticed her first, and turned toward her, his back to Dante. In a voice ridden with controlled impatience, he spoke."_Mother_, now what?"

"I'm sorry, I just can't be sure if I'm translating these scripts correct or not." Eva said with a helpless sigh, tracing a line in the book with her index finger.

"Oh, _great!_" The girl exploded, dropping her stance and whirling to face Eva. "Now I lost my grip! And I was doing so _good_, Mom! Vergil didn't have to snap at me even once! Why'd you have to come and ruin it?"

"Ali, control yourself," Enji chided, but Eva was speaking over him.

"Don't you take that tone of voice with me, young lady. I'll ban you from Iaido indefinitely, is that understood?" Eva said heatedly, looking at the girl with a stern, composed expression.

"But... ugh. Whatever." The girl grumbled, deftly twirling her katana in her hand absent-mindedly.

"Can it wait until after?" Enji asked, striding toward Eva.

"If it could, I wouldn't have come to disturb you." Eva said, watching through narrowed eyes as the girl spun in a circle and made reckless, swift slices with her katana at the air around her. "Your father has reason to worry that Dante might have discovered a way to track us down – there's a spell in this book that will aid him in preventing that from occurring, and he wanted it today before going to see Enji," Eva said, her gaze shifting away from the wild play the girl was exhibiting with a slight shake of her head, to fix on Enji who had come to take a stand right beside her, leaning over her shoulder to scrutinize the book in her hands.

"These are ancient texts. It would be better to reference them to..." Enji's words ran dead abruptly, and his gaze snapped up to lock with Dante's. There was a flicker of momentary bewilderment across his face, and then his jaw clenched in resolute purpose.

Dante felt he ought to move and get out of there, but the trouble was he didn't know how to get out, or where exactly he was. He didn't even trust that what he was seeing was real. Because it couldn't be.

"...to the symbolic texts I translated before. The journal is in my room," Vergil continued, twirling Eva around and steering her back out through the door. "I'll join you shortly, and we'll decipher the text together, alright?"

"Hey, check this out, Vergil," the girl piped up once Eva was gone and he'd closed the door firmly behind her. The girl ran up to the mirror – physically ran two or three steps up the side of it – and did a flip through the air. She arched the katana through the air, lost her grip, and landed off balance on the floor with a surprised cry of "Shit!" The katana flew through the air and loudly clashed into the wall close by Dante.

The girl caught herself, and her eyes went round when she spotted Dante. She took a startled step back at the sight of him – Dante was sure he didn't fit in here at all, he felt like a black garbage bag standing in sterile white cleanness – and repeated her previous exclamation. "_Shit_."

"What was that supposed to be?" Vergil asked, drawing out his katana and glancing at her incredulously as he strolled right toward Dante.

"Should I go get mom?" The girl hiccupped, edging toward the door Eva had gone through. She looked scared out of her wits, staring holes into Dante.

"I'll handle this." Vergil said sharply, and the girl stopped edging toward the door. She followed in Vergil's wake cautiously, warily looking from Dante to her katana lying a few feet away from him.

"Vergil... don't do anything stupid..." She hissed through gritted teeth.

Dante retreated a step when the boy came to a halt a few feet in front of him. There was a swish of metal and a flash of blade, and the katana pressed up against Dante's throat.

"How did you get here?" Vergil demanded. Always the calm and quiet one, even in the face of chaos. The sharp pain of the blade against his throat convinced Dante that this wasn't any illusion. When he didn't respond, Vergil's eyes narrowed and he increased the strength on the katana. Dante felt flesh tear and blood running down his neck in little streams that turned cold. "What have you done?"

Adrenaline kicked Dante into action. He gingerly gripped the blade at his throat with his thumb and index finger, giving it one hard tug – a quick move to dislodge the weapon from its owner's hand. Vergil held steady, though, and a scowl crept across his forehead.

"I will kill you if I have to repeat myself. Now answer me." Vergil growled.

Dante watched the girl skip around them and down the hallway he'd come from, calling out for her father. He swallowed hard, and shrugged arrogantly. "Guess you'll have to kill me then."

The sword pressed deeper into his skin. More blood flowed. Vergil's face turned icy. "You fool!"

"Vergil, dad's not in the study... stop it! You're going to cut his head off!" The girl had reappeared, and was pulling at Vergil's hand, trying to pull the katana away from Dante's throat. Vergil didn't budge. The blade cut deeper.

"Come on! I know how he did it... somebody must have told him about the transfer portal being left open for a few seconds..." Ali huffed, tugging harder at his arm. She let go abruptly, and landed a whack from behind on Vergil's head. "You can't kill him – what about Enji?"

"I'll kill them both." Vergil muttered, lowering the katana and glaring at Ali.

"Don't be an idiot."

"I'd have preferred to deal with this myself." Vergil said angrily, looking past Dante.

"Too bad you're not eighteen yet," The Wimp's voice sounded up behind Dante before he could turn around to avoid the attack.

The world snapped a change of scenery down around them. They were back in the office – it looked far more shabby and dirty in comparison to the immaculate room he'd just been in. Dante wrenched free of the iron grip around him, and aimed Ivory at the Wimp.

"You owe me some explanations, pal," Dante roared.

"I owe you nothing," the Wimp retorted, equally furious, as he took several steps away from Dante.

"Tch, you think?" Dante sneered at him. "That's why you made such a fucked up father."

The Wimp responded by pulling the bird, and then he was simply gone. Dante darted forward, but the teleporting vacuum had already disappeared. There was nothing but thin air in front of him.

"...it's okay, I'm gonna get you some help, just hang on,Enji..."

Dante turned around and took the scene in for a moment. Nero was hovering over Enji, his gestures frantic, his face tight with fear and worry. Enji looked dangerously close to death – his eyes weren't focussing, and he didn't seem to hear Nero. Dante dropped Ivory and strolled over to them. Nero pulled Blue Rose at him when Dante crouched down beside the boy.  
Dante paid no attention to him. He carefully shifted his hands beneath Enji to lift him up.

"Why'd you do it?" Nero snarled at him.

"It was the only way to get Sparda to come." Dante said curtly, and with Enji in his arms, he marched through the door of Devil May Cry.

**~...~**

**Told you there'd be more action ;) Like it? Hate it? Review!**


	18. Abandon All Hope

_Let the energy run its course._

He didn't know whether he was awake or unconscious. He could distinguish between neither. Both were black holes. One swarmed with a pain so intense that it chased him back to the other hole; the other hole which echoed with a silky voice that slipped about in his mind like an ice cube on a hot surface.

_You have to let go of it..._

I want to die, the thought reverberated through his head and curled around his core like talons tearing into its prey.

_Don't prolong the process..._

He was being dragged back to the other hole, the one where the pain was. He kicked against it, kept himself in whatever abyss he was currently in. The voice wasn't any more comforting than the memory of the pain.

_Loosen your control, do it now!_

What control? Control over what? What the hell was he talking about?

_You're not ready to embrace our heritage yet..._

Who are you? The three words bounced around in his head.

_Let go of it! Do as I say._

Was he already dead? He must be. Who else could be the voice snapping orders at him but the Big Guy upstairs? Or maybe it was the Prince of Darkness calling him out. He felt his heartbeat pick up at the mere thought, and the talons around his core became ice.

_...if you let your energy take its path_...the voice sounded deterred and less commanding at his terrified thoughts... _you will not die... Enji, stop fighting it..._

There was a reason he was fighting it. He couldn't remember what it was. Nothing much made sense in his shaken mind. Whatever – just do it. Enji struggled to release the restraint he exerted on his abilities. It wasn't a mental or spiritual thing to blame. It was emotional, but he just couldn't recall that vital scrap of memory as to why he didn't want to wake up.

It took him a while before he was able to withdraw the confusing medley of emotions. There was a mental crack, and the wall that had kept his power at bay crumbled like a wall of sand in the path of a tsunami. It soared through his veins and circulated his body like a breath of fresh air on a humid day. It played through his body like cool fingers weaving through his tissue; a soothing, familiar touch caressing his taut nerves and surrounding the damaged part of his form.

Healing hurt, in a good way. The fierce ache in his mid-riff had been raw and brutal, but now it was overcome with the comforting itch that meant his tissue was mending itself; a painful tightening, a tender pulling together sensation. He could breathe easier now, too. There was a bad taste in his mouth, like dried blood.

Enji opened his eyes and stared up at a faintly lit ceiling. He slowly turned his head toward the soft gold light source nearby, situated on a familiar bedside cabinet. A rocking chair was next to it. He blinked once, hard, and felt a gentle, warm hand touch his cheek and turn his face in the opposite direction.

"Welcome back," Trish said quietly, and offered him a small smile. "I thought we were going to lose you there for a while."

"Where am I?" Enji asked, glad that his voice was still working, however weak it came out.

"You're home."

There was a rap at the door, short and impatient. Trish looked toward it for a second, before looking back down at him. There was annoyance on her face, regret and genuine fear in her eyes. The door creaked open.

"Is he-" Nero's voice.

"He's awake." Trish said curtly.

Enji rolled his head on the pillow to look when Nero stepped into the dark room. His face was unnaturally pale, and wrinkled with an unpleasant scowl.

"Good." Nero said, staring down at Enji with immense relief, but his voice changed and he looked at Trish sharply, his voice growing cold. "Now get out."

"Nero, listen to me, I'm telling you..."

"I don't give a damn. Get out now."

Trish pursed her lips and stared back at Nero with equal fierceness. Her tone was calm and reassuring, but her words brought back that scrap of memory Enji had been chasing after. "You know Dante. You know he would never dream of killing Enji. Something drove him to this, and whatever he's uncovered, it's not good."

Enji pushed himself up to sit on the bed. He was home, but not the home he'd initially thought when the word was mentioned. He was in the spare bedroom in Nero's apartment. And Dante had tried to kill him. Nero seemed alarmed when he sat up, but Trish looked more relieved than anything else.

"I couldn't care less. He's not coming near Enji again, not on my watch." Nero growled dangerously. "I want you out of my house, Trish. You and Dante can stay the hell away from Fortuna, too, because if I catch either of you..."

"Please, don't try to threaten me, boy," Trish said condescendingly. "Enji will leave with me."

"Enji stays."

"Don't make this any uglier than it needs to be, Nero."

"Enji stays." Kyrie said from the doorway. Enji looked up at the sound of her voice, and then she was perching on the bed beside him, her arms enveloping him in a tight, protective embrace. "You'll not take him away from us. Dante has already proven that he can't keep Enji safe."

"Something possessed him to do this. Something is up. Dante's methods might be questionable, but he always has motives behind his actions..." Trish contested.

"Now see here, that in no means whatsoever justifies what he's done..."Kyrie started.

"He did what he thought was best..."Trish cut in.

"Are you joking? He shot me so he could run a sword through Enji's gut." Nero said.

"Still, perhaps if we could find this young man, this man Dante believes to be Sparda..." Trish tried again.

"Finding a teleporter is like trying to catch a drop of oil in water. Besides that, Sparda is dead. That kid that likes to keep himself scarce is not the legendary Dark Knight." Nero said.

"Strange how he could so easily use the power within the Sparda sword then, don't you think?" Trish growled back.

"Strange how I could so easily use the power within Yamato, don't you think?" Nero fired back with blazing eyes. "That doesn't make me any more Dante's deceased brother than it makes that kid Sparda."

Nero leaned over the bed, staring daggers at Trish. "Do you know what he was going to do? He was going to take Enji to the medical clinic."

"He... what?" Trish asked, dumbstruck.

"They would have had the place crawling with scientists. They would have taken Enji away from us forever," Nero said roughly. "And if I didn't unleash Yamato on Dante as soon as I realized his intentions, Enji would have bled to death before we ever got here."

"You misjudge Dante's intentions. He's always been careful around humans wanting to aid him and Enji medically. Always." Trish said, shaking her head, but her voice had grown feeble and was unsteady with confusion.

"Well maybe the devil inside of him has decided to possess him," Nero said scathingly. "Or maybe he's just lost his damn mind. Either way, I'll show him no sympathy. He's betrayed our trust. He won't get a second chance."

"You're jumping to conclusions. Dante will be able to explain it all if you just give him the ch..." Trish began.

"Where is he?" Enji interrupted, and Trish fell silent.

"He's outside, but don't worry. We won't let him near you, never again." Kyrie said, her arms tightening around him.

"It's gonna be alright, Enji," Nero said firmly, giving Enji's shoulder a light squeeze.

Enji glanced from one face to the other. Emotions conflicted inside of him – fear and anger clawed at one another like two felines, and confusion cowered beneath the brawl. He hated Dante. He feared him. He'd be content to never lay eyes on the bastard again. But there was a feeling inside of him, a whisper of urgency that compelled him to go face Dante head on. It wasn't like Dante to do what he did. It wasn't right.

"Let me go talk to him." Enji said, disentangling himself from Kyrie's arms.

"No, no, no..." Kyrie said, alarmed.

"He won't hurt me." Enji said. There was quiet conviction behind his words. He knew Dante wouldn't hurt him, despite having mortally wounded him not too long ago. He knew Dante better than any of the others did.

"That's not going to happen..." Nero said.

"I'll come with you." Trish said. Even though she'd been sticking up for Dante all the while, Enji realized she was just as scared and angry at Dante as the rest of them. She wouldn't let him face Dante alone. She didn't trust him. Clearly, none of them did, and Enji didn't blame them. He himself felt he shouldn't trust Dante, but he knew him too well. Far too well to let something like this scare him off.

Enji walked down the hallway toward the front door, Nero on his side, Trish in front of him, Kyrie on his other side. Like his own personal entourage. The wound in his stomach and the holes in his neck and arm had healed, leaving behind smooth, blood coated skin. The night air was surprisingly warm when they stepped outside.

Dante was sitting on the sidewalk across the narrow street with his head hanging low and his feet firmly planted on the cobblestone road. The wind ruffled his hair. Other than that, there was no movement from the mercenary. Nero wouldn't let Enji go any closer than a few steps, and he crouched down in the middle of the road instead.

"Why?" Enji asked. The single word cut through the still night and danced down the long winding road.

Dante shrugged, and muttered without looking up at any of them, "Seemed like a good plan at the time."

"And the plans was?"

"To provoke Sparda out of hiding so I could retrace his steps and find out what the hell is going on."

Enji hesitated. "And did you?"

Dante didn't respond right away. He eventually looked up, and his eyes were cold and troubled as he studied Enji. He squinted, frowned, and lowered his gaze to the ground once more.

"You found out that I'm not a reincarnation of Vergil, right?" Enji pressed.

Dante grunted in reply, and let out a long, steady breath. "I'm gonna leave you to it then."

Enji sat, stumped silent for a moment as he watched Dante get to his feet and slowly start to wander up the street. "You're walking out on me?" Enji called, and then he was suddenly on his feet and in pursuit. "What? Because it turns out that I was right after all, and that I'm not your dead brother?"

"Enji, come back here!" Kyrie cried from behind them.

He caught up to Dante, and stepped in the mercenary's path. Dante stopped, and their eyes locked; the veteran in royal red leather coat facing off with the younger shirtless youth. Both with cores of steel, and fire in their eyes.

"I want you to have these." Dante finally said in a subdued voice.

Enji looked at the pair of pistols Dante held to him before meeting the elder's gaze directly. "What did you find? Dante? Tell me what you know."

"I need to go figure this out, kid."

"We'll figure it out together, like we always do."

"Take the damn guns." Dante growled, and Enji obeyed, twirling Ebony and Ivory in his hands with such ease that it seemed they were an extension of his being.

"You're not going forever, are you?" Enji asked, his voice becoming void of emotion.

Dante glanced over his shoulder. Nero was starting toward them, and so was Trish. "I don't know, Enji."

"I don't have a mother. You're the closest thing I've ever had to a father."

"Tch, what about Nero? He's better at the whole dad thing than I am." Dante said, noting the aggravated expression on Nero's face.

"They don't know me like you do. What if they get fed up with me? What if they leave me, too?"

Dante turned back to Enji, and they stared at each other. It hurt him to say it, and for once, Dante wasn't able to make light of the situation at hand. He rested his fist to Enji's heart. "You gotta rely on yourself, and no one else. You're the only person you can ever count on." Dante said, and jerked his thumb at his own chest. "I had to learn that the hard way, too."

An icy shadow swept across the teenager's face, and Enji leaned away from Dante. They looked each other in the eye, their body language mirroring the other's languid pose; deceiving masks of indifference to hide the hurt. Then, as one, they moved. Dante headed for the dark, lonely street. Enji brushed past him in the opposite direction toward an upset Nero and furiously worried Kyrie. Their steps were slow and identical at first, then picked up the pace as resolve set in. Neither one looked back.


	19. Keep It Cool

**THANK YOU!**  
**You all have been so awesome for waiting so long for this! Due to there being a few of you out there who share my want for both Enji's story and Dante's story, I will be doing both. **  
**I'll do Dante's story separately, once I complete this one, because Enji wins by one vote (vote not cast on FFN). 6:5 Even with my vote(s). So, here's Enji's story. Hope you guys enjoy!**

* * *

Dawn was breaking the royal blue sky into shards of lavender and rose when Kyrie entered the kitchen to prepare breakfast for their family. Enji watched her from the shadows of the family table as she flicked on the fluorescent lights and bustled about with pans and food.

He considered slipping out of the apartment and roaming the lonely streets of Fortuna, but this would not bode well with Kyrie or Nero. They kept him on a short leash, something Enji still had trouble accepting five months after they took him in; five months since he'd last seen Trish. Twenty two weeks since he'd last heard anything from Lady. One hundred and fifty three days he'd spent every hour hoping and waiting for Dante to come back.

"Hey." Nero's sleepy voice made Enji look up from glaring at the table, and he watched the older man settle into the chair beside him. "You're up early again. Don't you ever sleep, Enji?"

"Enji likes to watch the sunrise with me," Kyrie said from the kitchen.

If only they knew. Enji twitched and clamped his hands together on his lap. He couldn't give a shit about sunrises. He _wasn't _sleeping; some nights it was because he thought he could sense Dante nearby, and he'd wait up in fierce anticipation and cruel hope that Dante would come kicking down the front door and take him home. Other nights it was because his sleep was plagued with that recurring nightmare filled with darkness and reflections, always the same, always waking him up in a cold sweat with the cold voice growling 'shall never surrender' echoing through his head.

"Everything okay at school, buddy?" Nero asked, studying Enji's tight expression.

"Yeah," Enji blew out his breath.

Fortuna High was very different from what Enji was accustomed to. It was far smaller, for one – everyone knew everyone else. There were no cliques, but there were bullies. Enji had known he would never get away from people like that. He'd been lucky up to this point, because they hadn't actually picked on him. Everyone seemed to know who Nero was, and therefore knew who Enji was. The kids treated him differently, but it was a better treatment than the one he'd gotten back home.

Still, he didn't belong, and he missed Emily's company.

"You've got that big test coming up sometime soon, don't you?" Nero pressed.

"Yeah."

"I'm sure you'll do well, Enji. You're always studying and doing your homework in your room, I don't think you have anything to worry about," Kyrie said, and placed a cup of coffee in front of Nero. "You set such an excellent example of what a good student is supposed to be like," she added to Enji with an affectionate pat on his shoulder. "We're very proud of you, Enji."

"Whatever."

Nero leaned back and sipped his coffee, watching Enji carefully. "Have you signed up for any sports yet?"

"No."

"You should. You need to get some exercise in and keep yourself strong."

"I used to be strong when I went out hunting with Dante," Enji muttered. It was the wrong thing to say; Enji knew by now that just the mention of Dante triggered the constant tension between himself and Nero.

Nero slammed his cup down on the table, sending dark liquid sloshing over the brim, and he flew to his feet, his eyes blazing. "I _told _you, Enji, you need to stop thinking about it. You're too young to put your life at risk like that. Dante didn't know what the hell he was doing, and if I'd known he was taking you into dangerous territory, I would have taken you away from him a damn long time ago!"

"Nero!" Kyrie chided, rushing over to place a calming hand on Nero's throbbing devil bringer. "You need to calm down."

"You weren't much older than me when you were trained to become a knight," Enji said apathetically. His voice dropped into a miserable tone. "What's it matter, anyway? Dante's not coming back, and you'll never let me help you fight off demons."

"It's for your own good," Nero said, struggling to regain his composure as he sat back down. Kyrie mopped up his spilt drink, and exchanged worried looks with him when Enji let out a long, heavy sigh.

"We only want to keep you safe, Enji. You've been through too much for a boy your age. We care about you, and we want what is best for you," Kyrie said gently.

"Yeah I know," Enji lied. If anyone had known what was best for him, it had been Dante.

If he hadn't taught Enji how to fight, or nurtured his need to be independent instead of suppressing it, Enji would be a pudgy little rich brat who needed others to help him survive. As it were, Enji didn't need Nero or Kyrie. He could survive on his own. He could take care of himself. Besides, he couldn't count on anyone else but himself. Dante knew that, and Enji knew that, too. But Kyrie and Nero were a different breed all together – they didn't believe that Enji was capable at life, and they always had to keep track of him – where he was, when he was there, who he was with, what he was doing, why he couldn't do the same thing at home. Their complete lack of trust in Enji's ability to sustain himself was the rock wall that stopped him from opening up to them. They wouldn't understand. They didn't get how his mind worked.

"Look," Nero said, folding his hands on the table and giving him a sidelong look. "I've got it under control. The city has been at peace for a long time now, there are no demons to deal with since the hellgates were destroyed."

"That doesn't mean there aren't demons somewhere else," Enji said.

"Enji, we don't go out looking for these things..."

"I'm gonna be late for school," Enji cut in, pushing himself out of his chair and shrugging on his school cloak.

"But you haven't had breakf-" Kyrie's protest was snapped off when he slammed the front door shut behind him.

Enji gave the street outside a cool stare, knowing he wouldn't see a flash of red but hoping he would anyway. The walk to school was as uneventful and lonely as always. The streets were littered with students in their humble brown cloaks making their way in the same direction as he was. Enji kept a fair distance from them, completely aware of the curious yet wary eyes of the other kids following him as he descended the stairs and walked past the crates of tomatoes and watermelons set out early by the merchants. He picked up the pace and slipped through the heavy, arched, blue doors into the tunnel that led down to the dock. Students were idling in the shadowy tunnel, leaning up against the walls. Some were sharing saliva, others were copying homework sheets, and a few were in deep discussion about the upcoming test that day.

Things that Enji thought were insignificant but that these people clearly saw as 'sinful'. The folk here were anal about everything. Enji wondered what lecture he'd get from Kyrie and Nero about chivalry and manners if he was to make out with Emily in the middle of the street, in public, with all to gape and behold. Not that he and Emily would, but it would be entertaining to see what would happen. Maybe he'd set a new trend and break this convent into the new world. He'd have a field day with that.

The stench of fish and salt was thick in the air, and Enji moved swiftly across the wooden docks to another set of doors. He always felt like the smell somehow stuck to him and he knew he'd be smelling fish for the rest of the day. He stepped into the old stone building where the railroad tracks of a long abandoned mine were still present, and passed more merchants setting their goods out for the day ahead. He carried up a flight of stairs and breathed in deeply when he stepped into the rich part of Fortuna. Kyrie had told him that this area used to be the desolate part of Fortuna - an old mine town - where no one ever went. He wouldn't have guessed that as he weaved his way down the paved street lined with double storey villas with green gardens. A small courtyard was in the centre of the neighbourhood with a large fountain. Children were sitting all around it, their voices and laughter filling the air.

Enji jogged up the corridor of stairs that led to the most popular spot in Fortuna, with the best view over the city and ocean for romantic couples. The area had been landscaped into a park with rosebushes and trees and heavy wooden benches. The entrance to the actual mine was lit up with torches in the walls, and even though the tracks had been removed long ago, the indents were still visible in the hard ground. Enji wound his way through the mine and up a great stairwell that led to the outside.

The old broken down castle of Fortuna had been rebuilt to its former glory, looming beyond the infernally long bridge like Mundus's lair itself. Enji marched across the cobblestone, keeping his head lower than he had before, attempting by all means to hide behind his long, neglected strands of silver hair. He kept his gaze focussed on each person he passed, but avoided making eye contact with anyone. His body language preached warning - he was dangerous, and not in the mood.

Too bad the girls in this school were both blind and dumb. There was a group of them waiting right outside the sign-in room - another anal rule the school followed religiously was to have students sign their name in a book before they could cross the basketball court to the castle itself. There was no escaping this procedure, hence Enji liked to show up really early or really late for school. He hated foot traffic, and being forced to stand in a cue of thirty or more students just to sign his damn name in some damn book. Today he wrote down 'Vergil' instead of Enji, just as he'd been doing for the past couple of months. He'd hoped it would somehow provoke Dante to come out of hiding. It wasn't working, though, and he played with the tempting idea of snatching the book away from the teacher on duty that morning and tossing it over the rim of the bridge into the ocean below. That would be one less hassle to deal with in the mornings.

As Enji tried to beat back the little devil on his shoulder telling him 'do it, what can they do to stop you?', the group of girls swarmed him like a bee colony buzzing around the only beehive in town. Enji had come to call them the 'Convent'. Emily would have a blast mocking their conservative dress. The Convent of Conservative Dress.

"Enji, did you study for the test?"

"Do you want to come revise the work with us..."

"Yes, would you like to join us?"

"We're all at the top of our classes!"

_Yeah, I bet_, Enji thought with a grimace. He didn't slack on his pace or look in their direction. "That's okay, ladies. I already know the work."

He left them whispering and gaping at him in disappointment when another nun stepped in his way.

"Hey, Vergil," the girl said with a bite in her voice.

Enji paused, startled, and lifted his head to stare at the cloaked girl before him. "Are you spying on me?"

"Spying on you? What the hell are you talking about?"

"The name I put down in the registar," Enji said, and frowned when the girl's attitude did a complete 360.

"Oh! Duh, I know your name isn't Vergil," she said, scuffing the toe of her boot against the stone ground.

"Look, I already told your friends I've done my studying," Enji said, gesturing briefly and discreetly toward the group of girls still glancing toward him. He didn't want them to mistake his gesture as an invitation to come over.

"Studying?" the girl repeated, surprised. "Have we got a test today?"

"Uh, yeah. Everyone knew about it for a week," Enji arched an eyebrow.

"But...ugh, damn it!" the girl exploded, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. "I had family drama! Do you think they'll let me resit the test?"

"No," Enji said, and started to inch his way around the girl.

"Great. My mom is gonna tear me to pieces if I bring home another F," the girl grumbled. She reached up and pulled down her hood, revealing a blonde with blue eyes that struck him as a younger Trish. The resemblance was uncanny, by any means. His surprise lasted for only a couple of seconds - nothing much could move him, not when he's seen it all and been through it all already. "Will you help me?"

"It's a bit late to start studying now, don't you think?" Enji said, moving past her, intent on getting this conversation over with.

"No shit. I meant will you help me with the test?" she said, cutting him off by some inexplicable move.

Enji stopped dead in his tracks, and turned to look at the spot where she'd been a second ago, and back to where she was now standing, looking at him with wide, hopeful eyes. So, maybe she wasn't a nun - he was fairly sure there was some form of eternal punishment in the afterlife for saying 'shit' and 'damn', according to the officials of Fortuna. He wondered if she was some decendant of Trish, or maybe another Mundus creation gone awol.

"You want to cheat?" Enji asked, amused.

"Uh. Yeah!"

"Well, looks like this school isn't as stepford as I thought."

"What's _that_supposed to mean?"

"Never mind. Yeah, I'll help you cheat. But if we get caught, you're on your own."

"Fair. Thanks, Enji, you're my hero!" the girl exclaimed dramatically, pulling him into a sudden hug of smothering proportions before she disappeared into the castle.

Enji stood for a moment, shrugged his shoulders as if he was trying to shrug off the lingering feeling of her touch, and followed in her wake. The auditorium was neatly stacked with school desks and chairs. Enji picked a random seat and slumped into it with a loud sigh, winning a few looks from his fellow students in the nearby vicinity. He tilted his chair back onto its two back legs, propped his booted feet onto his desk and crossed his arms across his chest. He rested his chin against his chest and closed his eyes, willing everything around him to be sucked into a black vortex.

In the far back of his mind he heard the bells in the back courtyard chiming their resonating song through the walls of the castle, and felt the vibrations of sound gently dance their way across the tiled floors. Students began to fill the room and take their seats. He could hear them as they came in, detect where they sat themselves down. Which made him a little curious as to how the mini-Trish managed to take a seat right beside him without him picking up on her coming into the room at all. She was very sneaky.

"So," she said, giving him a light tap on his shoulder. "We're doing this old school style, right?"

Enji popped open one eye to peek at her. "Huh?"

"Passing notes?" she said, making a scribbling motion in the air in front of her with a pen, as if he was an idiot.

"Risky, don't you think?"

"In this place? You're funny, Enji," the girl said with a small smile.

She was right, of course. He managed to pass the answers to her without worrying about getting caught because for one, all the other good students kept their eyes focussed on their own test sheets, and for another, there was only one tutor present in the enormous hall and he was sitting at the very front, pouring over his own paperwork. It was still a relief when the test was finally over. Enji hated busy places like these. Too many people, too many auras invading his personal space. He needed space to breathe, and silence. Because, as soon as their tests were handed in, the room erupted into conversation; it was like a dam wall had burst. A hundred voices filled his ears as he rose to his feet and started making headway to the exit.

"Hey! Thanks for that, Enji. I have to make it up to you somehow," the girl said, catching his sleeve before he could make his escape.

"That's okay." Enji shrugged her off.

"No, really. Why don't you come over to my house for dinner, say, tomorrow night? We're having pizza."

"Sure," Enji muttered uneasily. The only other person who had ever invited him for dinner was Emily, and then it was often only because her mother was working late.

He was relieved when she immediately backed off, though. It only hit him, when he was halfway home, that he hadn't bothered to ask her name. He couldn't remember if she'd given it to him or not. Oh well. If she was anything like her peers, he'd be ambushed by her again the next morning.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry it's not very action packed. I'll go with the excuse that this is the calm before the storm? :3**


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